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LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LATEST NEWS

Slatkin Returns to the Nashville Symphony as Music Advisor
By leonard slatkin
July 16, 2025

The Nashville Symphony announced today that Slatkin will return to serve as Music Advisor for the next three years. Slatkin will lead the orchestra through a pivotal period that includes the 20th anniversary of Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

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Slatkin to Speak at New Hollywood String Quartet’s Summer of Angels Festival
By leonard slatkin
May 19, 2025

Leonard will introduce the Summer of Angels Chamber Music Festival July 10-13 at The Huntington in San Marino, CA. The concerts will feature the New Hollywood String Quartet playing repertoire recorded by the original Hollywood String Quartet.

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Latest from the Journal

JULY 2025

By leonard slatkin

Not a Marx brother in sight, but I spent many June days and nights at the opera enjoying Britten’s fun and fantasy-filled adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Several years ago, on this same site, I wrote about putting together a standard opera production at the Metropolitan Opera. That journal entry turned out to be controversial, but I still think it is valuable to understand the process that goes into bringing a work to life from the planning stage to performance. This month, I will take you behind the scenes at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and explain how we put it all together.

Leonard Slatkin

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon, Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, and Artistic Consultant to the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting and is active as a composer, author, and educator.

A six-time Grammy winner and recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has been awarded the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, and the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton. His debut book, Conducting Business (2012), for which he received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award, was followed by Leading Tones (2017) and Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21^st Century (2021). His latest books are Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century (spring 2024) and Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Nineteenth Century (fall 2024), part of an ongoing series of essays that supplement the score-study process, published by Bloomsbury.

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