Music Director
Multiple GRAMMY Award-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Music Director Laureate of the Virginia Symphony, Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center, and Conductor Laureate of the Hawaii Symphony. Named as one of the 50 great conductors of all time by Gramophone Magazine and among the top 10 conductors today by David Hurwitz of ClassicsToday.com, she is hailed for her work as a conductor, recording artist, audience builder, and champion of American composers.
As Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Falletta became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra and has been credited with bringing the Philharmonic to an unprecedented level of national and international prominence. The Buffalo Philharmonic has become one of the leading recording orchestras for Naxos, with two GRAMMY Award-winning recordings and a 2024 Best Orchestral Performance GRAMMY nomination for Alexander Scriabin: The Poem of Ecstasy and Symphony No. 2 (Naxos).
Internationally, Falletta has conducted many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, and South America, including recent and upcoming concerts in France, England, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Brazil, Croatia, and Mexico. Her recent and upcoming North American guest conducting includes the National Symphony, the orchestras of Dallas, Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, Milwaukee, Calgary, Vancouver, Quebec, Tulsa, Charleston, Nashville, and Rochester, and at premier conservatories including Juilliard, Curtis, Cleveland Institute of Music, Indiana University, the Manhattan School, Mannes, and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
With a discography of over 125 titles, Falletta is a leading recording artist for Naxos. She has won two individual GRAMMY Awards, including the 2021 GRAMMY Award for Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua with the BPO and the 2019 GRAMMY for Spiritualist by Kenneth Fuchs with the London Symphony, both on Naxos. Her BPO recording of John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan received two GRAMMYs in 2008, and her 2020 Naxos recording with the BPO of orchestral music of Florent Schmitt received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award.
Falletta is a member of the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has served by Presidential appointment as a Member of the National Council on the Arts during the Bush and Obama administrations, and is the recipient of many of the most prestigious conducting awards. She has conducted over 1,600 orchestral works by more than 600 composers, 135 works by more than 70 women composers, and well over 150 U.S. and world premieres. ASCAP has honored her as “a leading force for music of our time.” In 2019, Falletta was named Performance Today’s first Classical Woman of the Year, and in 2024, the Dallas Symphony announced that she will receive their Award of Excellence.
After earning her bachelor’s degree at Mannes, Falletta received master’s and doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School. When not on the podium, JoAnn enjoys playing classical guitar, writing, cycling, yoga, and is an avid reader.
For more information, visit joannfalletta.com.