Andrew Davis | Director

Sir Andrew Davis is one of today’s most highly regarded international conductors. He has been serving as Music Director of Lyric Opera of Chicago since 2000 and as Artistic Advisor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since the 2005/06 season. In addition, Maestro Davis is the Conductor Laureate of the Toronto Symphony and BBC Symphony orchestras and the former Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Born in 1944 in Hertfordshire, England, Maestro Davis studied at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar before taking up the baton. His diverse repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary, and his vast conducting credits span the symphonic and operatic and choral worlds. In addition to the core symphonic and operatic composers, he is a great proponent of twentieth century works including those by Janáček, Messiaen, Boulez, Elgar, Tippett and Britten.

With the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Davis has led concerts at the BBC Proms and on tour to Hong Kong, Japan, the US, and Europe. He has conducted all of the major orchestras of the world from the Chicago Symphony to the Berlin Philarmonic to the Royal Concertgebouw, and at opera houses throughout the world including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the Bayreuth Festival.

Maestro Davis is also a prolific recording artist. He has recorded performances for Decca, Deutsche Grammophone, Warner Classics International, Capriccio, EMI and CBS.

In 1992, Maestro Davis was created a Commander of the British Empire for his services to British Music, and in 1999 he was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List. In 1991, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society/Charles Heidsieck Music Award.

In the 2006/07 season at the Lyric Opera of Chicago he conducts productions of Turandot, Salome, Cosi Fan Tutte and Dialogues of the Carmelites, and at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and at the Liceu, Barcelona, performances of Thais. He leads the Pittsburgh Symphony in numerous concerts in Pittsburgh and at New York’s Carnegie Hall as well as on a European tour. Maestro Davis conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and on tour in an Elgar celebration, the Toronto Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Detroit Symphony and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.