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LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

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Flying Blind: A Conductor’s Guide to Taking an Audition
By leonard slatkin
December 16, 2024

Leonard Slatkin shares his perspective on how string players should best approach a blind orchestral audition in a series of articles for The Strad.

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leonard slatkin
Rave Reviews for Slatkin, Ax, and the NSO in Washington, D.C.
By leonard slatkin
November 15, 2024

Reviewers praised the opening performance of Slatkin’s program with the National Symphony Orchestra, which features Cindy McTee’s Double Play, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with soloist Emanuel Ax, and Walton’s Symphony No. 1.

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leonard slatkin

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FEBRUARY 2026

By leonard slatkin

Following the seven-week Asian tour of the past year, 2026 started off calmly. I was at home for a while, recuperating from jet lag and getting used to winter weather. For those of us from Los Angeles, this is no easy task.

As the month progressed, the news from Washington kept piling up. My colleagues at the Kennedy Center could not have truly anticipated how the transformation would disrupt their lives to the extent it has. I don’t want to dwell on this too much here. You all know what is going on.

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, Artistic Consultant to the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and Artistic Advisor to the Nashville Symphony. 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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