Angel Gil-Ordoñez

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Angel Gil-Ordóñez has attained an outstanding reputation among Spain’s new generation of conductors as he carries on the tradition of his teacher and mentor, Sergiu Celibidache. The Washington Post has praised his conducting as “mesmerizing” and “as colorfully textured as a fauvist painting.”

The former Associate Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Spain, Mr. Gil-Ordóñez has conducted symphonic music, opera and ballet throughout Europe, the United States and Latin America. In the United States, he has appeared with the American Composers Orchestra, Opera Colorado, the Pacific Symphony, the Hartford Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the National Gallery Orchestra in Washington. Abroad, he has been heard with the Munich Philharmonic, the Solistes de Berne, at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, and at the Bellas Artes National Theatre in Mexico City. In summer of 2000, he toured the major music festivals of Spain with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra in the Spanish premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass.

Born in Madrid, he worked closely with Sergiu Celibidache in Germany for over six years. He also studied with Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis in France. Currently the Music Director of Post-Classical Ensemble in Washington, D.C., Mr. Gil-Ordóñez also holds the positions of Director of Orchestral Studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and Music Director of the Wesleyan Ensemble of the Americas.

A specialist in the Spanish repertoire, Mr. Gil-Ordóñez has recorded four CDs devoted to Spanish composers. In June 2005, in association with the American Film Institute, Post-Classical Ensemble presented two classic American documentaries, The River and The Plow that Broke the Plains, whose scores by Virgil Thomson were performed live. These presentations generated a state-of-the-art DVD produced by Naxos.

In 2006, the King of Spain awarded Mr. Gil-Ordóñez the country’s highest civilian decoration, the Royal Order of Queen Isabella, which is equivalent to a knighthood, for his work in advancing Spanish culture in the world, in particular for performing and teaching Spanish music in its cultural context.