LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LATEST NEWS

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Composer Jeff Beal to Release New Album
By leonard slatkin
July 17, 2026

LACO and Emmy Award-winning composer Jeff Beal have announced the release of the album Body in Motion, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Body in Motion includes Beal’s violin concerto of the same name, written for violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins, and Four Score, composed in honor of Slatkin’s 80th birthday.

Read more

leonard slatkin
“Take Care of This House”: Slatkin Reflects on His Visit to the Kennedy Center
By leonard slatkin
June 4, 2026

Read Leonard Slatkin’s reflections on his recent visit to the Kennedy Center, where he spent twelve years as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Read more

leonard slatkin

VIEW ALL NEWS ENTRIES

Upcoming Events

Latest from the Journal

SEPTEMBER 2026

By leonard slatkin

It all started in Aspen in 1964. My father had died a year and a half earlier, and I felt completely adrift. I was fairly certain I would become an English teacher, but friends and musicians kept urging me to consider conducting. That is how I found myself in the Rockies, studying Barber’s Adagio for Strings with Walter Susskind.

That summer changed everything. The Barber would eventually become one of my signature works, a piece I have performed around the world on occasions of remembrance and other programs calling for its quiet, serene tone.

Leonard Slatkin

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director of the Nashville Symphony, Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. 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 Lincoln Medal from Ford’s Theatre Society, 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). A second volume of twentieth-century score studies will be published by Bloomsbury in February 2027 as part of this ongoing series.

LEARN MORE