Marcelo Lehninger
Brazilian-born Marcelo Lehninger is music director of the New West Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles. For his work there, he was awarded the Helen M. Thompson Award for Emerging Music Directors in 2014 by the League of American Orchestras. He recently concluded an appointment as associate conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
The 2015-2016 season includes Lehninger's debut with the Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Ft. Worth, Knoxville, Winnipeg and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphonies; the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France; and The Orchestra Now, as well as return engagements with the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Grand Rapids Symphony and Minas Gerais Philharmonic. His 2014-2015 season included debuts with the Detroit and Milwaukee Symphonies, and Rochester Philharmonic; and return engagements with the Florida Orchestra and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. In Europe, he appeared with the Lucerne Symphony, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and Slovenian Philharmonic, and assisted Mariss Jansons on tour with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
As a guest conductor in the United States, Lehninger has led the Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, Seattle, National, Jacksonville, New Jersey, Omaha, Hartford, Fairfax and Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Florida and Louisville Orchestras, Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, New England Conservatory Philharmonia and Bard College Conservatory Orchestra. In Canada, Lehninger has appeared with the Toronto Symphony, and Calgary and Hamilton Philharmonics. In 2013, Lehninger recorded the work of composer Christopher Culpo for Radio France in Paris, conducting the Orchestre National de France.
An alumnus of the National Conducting Institute, he made a successful debut with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2007 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and was invited to conduct the NSO again in 2008.
Lehninger was music advisor of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas for the 2007-2008 season. Placido Domingo serves as artistic advisor for the ensemble, which is composed of 120 talented musicians from more than 20 countries throughout the Americas. In summer 2008, Lehninger toured with YOA and pianist Nelson Freire in South America, conducting concerts in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. He has led all of the top orchestras in Brazil as well as regular guest conducting in Argentina, and previously served as associate conductor of the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra in Brazil.
Chosen by Kurt Masur in 2008, Lehninger was awarded the First Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship sponsored by the American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation. He was Maestro Masur's assistant with the Orchestre National de France (during their residency at the Musikverein in Vienna), Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and the New York Philharmonic. In 2011, he participated in the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, organized by the League of American Orchestras, conducting the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.
Before dedicating his career to conducting, Lehninger studied violin and piano. He holds a master's degree from the Conductors Institute at New York's Bard College, where he studied conducting under Harold Farberman and composition with Laurence Wallach. His mentors also include Kurt Masur, Leonard Slatkin and Roberto Tibiriçá. A dual citizen of Brazil and Germany, Lehninger is the son of pianist Sônia Goulart and violinist Erich Lehninger.
