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LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LATEST NEWS

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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MAY 2026

By leonard slatkin

Seven countries, seven languages, and ten cities. This nine-week European concert tour has been both exhausting and exhilarating.

April came right in the middle of the trip. With Glasgow up first, I was going to see an orchestra I first conducted in 1975. It was an all-French affair with the concertmaster Michael Davis playing Chausson and Ravel. Michael served in the same position when I was Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony in London.

Leonard Slatkin

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin was recently named Music Director of the Nashville Symphony. He will take the artistic helm of the orchestra beginning with the 2026/27 season, following his previous appointment as Artistic Advisor. His other titles include 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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