James Conlon
(c) Dan Steinberg/LA Opera
American conductor James Conlon, 71, has extended his contract as LA Opera’s Music Director through the 2024/25 season, the institution announced. At the same tie they say that Lina González-Granados will become Resident Conductor.
Since taking on the role in 2006, Conlon has conducted more than 400 performances with the company to date, leading 62 different operas, including two world premieres and 29 company premieres. He assumes the role of Artistic Advisor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in September 2021.
Colombian-American conductor Lina González-Granados will succeed Gershon as Resident Conductor. Her appointment, which lasts through the end of the 2024/25 season, will have her conducting one mainstage production annually, as well as additional performances on the company’s Off Grand, On Now and Connects stages.
She was the 2019 winner of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition and became the new Solti Conducting Apprentice with that orchestra, under the guidance of Riccardo Muti. She has also been a Conducting Fellow of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Seattle Symphony.
Grant Gershon, the company’s Resident Conductor since 2012 and Chorus Director since 2007, has decided to step down from both of those positions so that he can devote more time to the continued expansion of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, where he is now celebrating his 20th anniversary season, and to his busy conducting career. He will continue with the company through the end of the current season.
