Maximiano Valdés
Conductor
“Richard Strauss' exquisite new production. The Chilean conductor Maximiano Valdés has demonstrated great mastery in front of the Municipal Philharmonic Orchestra, managing with mastery and control the deployment of the entire bombastic musical flow, full of contrasts in this great orchestral mass (106 most singing musicians).” Cecilia Carvallo, Culturizarte
“Returning to the pit of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias was Max Valdés, who was its Principal Conductor for sixteen years. His mastery of the French repertoire is absolute, and he knew how to make the most of the timbral possibilities of an ambitious score, always taking care of respecting the voices, which is not easy given the profuse orchestration if which Saint-Saëns boasts.” Opera World
Biography
In February 2008, Chilean conductor Maximiano Valdés was named Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Puerto Rico Symphony in San Juan. Mr. Valdés recently ended a 16 year tenure as Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Spain and was named the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate. He is the former Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and served as Chief Conductor of both the orchestra and opera at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile, where he returns annually for both symphonic and opera performances. In March 2010, Mr. Valdés also accepted the position of Artistic Director of the famed Festival Casals in San Juan.
Born in Santiago,Chile, Maximiano Valdés began his studies in piano and violin at the Conservatory of Music there and continued at the Accademia de Santa Cecilia in Rome where he took courses in composition and conducting. Completing his diploma in piano, he decided to concentrate entirely on conducting and enrolled in the conducting classes of Franco Ferrara in Bologna, Siena and Venice and also worked with Sergiu Celibidache in Stuttgart and Paris. In 1976 Mr. Valdés was engaged as Assistant Conductor at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice and the following year was a conducting fellow at Tanglewood where he worked with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. He won First Prize at the Nicolai Malko Competition in Copenhagen, First Prize at the Vittorio Gui Competition in Florence, and Second Prize from the Rupert Foundation Conducting Competition in London.
Mr. Valdés made his American symphonic debut in October 1987 with the Buffalo Philharmonic and was immediately re-invited for the following season. After a successful return to the orchestra in 1989, he was appointed Music Director, a position he held for almost 10 years. In North America he has guest conducted many of the leading orchestras including the St. Louis, National, Montreal, Baltimore, Seattle, Houston, Dallas and New World symphonies and the Calgary Philharmonic. Summer festival appearances have included engagements at the Mann Music Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Caramoor, Interlochen, Grand Teton, Music Academy of the West and Grant Park festivals.
Recent and upcoming engagements include appearances in North America with the Indianapolis, Vancouver, Colorado, Phoenix, San Diego, Alabama, Charleston, Toledo and Virginia symphonies; the Buffalo and Louisiana Philharmonics; the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa; and the Eastern Music and Chautauqua festivals. Also an active international guest conductor, he has lead the Dresden Philharmonie, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw, Krakow and Katowice Philharmonics, Nice Opera Orchestra, Lisbon Philharmonic, Israel Chamber Orchestra and all of the major Spanish orchestras; the Malaysian Philharmonic; the Sao Paulo Orchestra, Sao Paulo Opera Orchestra and Philharmonica of Minas Gerais in Brazil; and the Mexico City Philharmonic and UNAM Philharmonic in Mexico City. In October 2011, Mr. Valdés led the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in a concert for the Pope at the Vatican. He traveled to Havana in January 2016 to conduct the Orquesta National de Cuba.
An experienced opera conductor who has led productions in many of Europe's leading opera houses, Mr. Valdés made his highly successful opera debut in France with La Traviata at the Nice Opera. Since then he has conducted productions in Paris, Lausanne, Rome, Berlin, London, Barcelona, Oslo, Copenhagen, Bonn, Asturias and Santiago, Chile. Mr. Valdés made his American operatic debut in May 1992 with the Seattle Opera conducting Cosi fan tutti and returned there in the fall of 1998 to lead Gounod's Faust. Recent and upcoming opera appearances include Katya Kabanova and Samson and Delilah in Oviedo, Spain; La Traviata, Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, Othello and Madame Butterfly in San Juan; Lakme, Damnation of Faust and Rigoletto at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile; and Don Carlo in Madrid.
Maximiano Valdés has recorded with London’s Royal Philharmonic, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Nice Philharmonic and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra and had an exclusive agreement with Naxos to record works by Latin American and Spanish composers with his orchestra in Asturias. His most recent recording is a CD of works by Roberto Sierra with the Puerto Rico Symphony, also for Naxos.