Robert Spano began his tenure as Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in September 2001. Over the past four years, the Creative Partnership between Mr. Spano and ASO Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles has become an innovative leadership model emulated by other orchestras and has brought about a remarkable period of artistic achievement and growth for the Orchestra.

Internationally recognized as one of America’s outstanding conductors, Mr. Spano has energized the ASO’s programming, restored its commissioning program, and added to its tradition of acclaimed recordings with longtime partner Telarc. His most recent recording is the Berlioz Requiem with the ASO and Chorus, which follows a CD of new orchestral works by Jennifer Higdon, and Rainbow Body, with pieces by Barber, Copland, Higdon, and Christopher Theofanidis. Future recordings will continue the emphasis on American music with world-premiere releases of choral works by Del Tredici and Theofanidis. The Berlioz and Higdon discs each received a Grammy award in February 2005, and the ASO’s 2003 recording of Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony received three Grammy Awards. Mr. Spano, the ASO and the Chorus are currently working on a two-year performance and recording project with composer Osvaldo Golijov and Deutsche Grammophon.

Mr. Spano’s vision has brought a fresh vitality to the ASO’s concert presentations, bringing to Atlanta many new works by living composers — spotlighted in “Meet The Composer” video interviews— and introducing visual artist installations to the concert format. His passionate advocacy of the ASO’s mission to fully engage the people of Atlanta and Georgia includes frequent visits to Atlanta schools, colleges, arts venues and organizations; performing as a pianist with local chamber ensembles; guiding the “ASO Around Georgia” program; and championing music education at the earliest level.

Acclaimed for leading vital, musically distinguished performances as well as for his breadth of repertoire and imaginative programming, Mr. Spano has conducted nearly every major North American orchestra, including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and Philadelphia Orchestra, and numerous orchestras abroad, such as Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala (Milan), the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra of the Hague, Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), and New Japan Philharmonic (Tokyo). This season marks Mr. Spano’s eighth and final year as music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. A distinguished opera conductor as well, Mr. Spano has conducted the Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and Santa Fe Opera, Royal Opera at Covent Garden (London), and Welsh National Opera and last season he led the world premiere at the Tanglewood Music Festival of Osvaldo Golijov’s chamber opera Ainadamar.

As part of his ongoing commitment to music education, Mr. Spano directed the conducting fellowship program at Tanglewood Music Center from 1988-2004 and was the director of the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music in 2003 and 2004. Most recently, he has been selected as Music Director of the 2006 Ojai Music Festival. Born in Conneaut, Ohio, and raised in Elkhart, Indiana, Mr. Spano grew up in a musical family. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, he studied conducting with Robert Baustian and continued his studies with Max Rudolf at The Curtis Institute of Music.

Robert Spano makes his home in Atlanta.