Alonda de la Parra

A gifted and charismatic communicator, conductor Alondra de la Parra has been generating attention and rapture on the international stage for several decades. Her compelling musical insight and passion have made her a coveted artist throughout the world.

In April 2022, she was appointed principal guest conductor of the Milan Symphony Orchestra, a post that marks a new chapter for the artist who has had raving reviews for her work in the 21/22 season. The new position will see her leading the Milan Symphony orchestra twice a year for the next two years.

This season she will conduct the world premiere of Joby Talbot’s Like Water for Chocolate for the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden, working alongside choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. She already conducted the Kenneth Macmillan production of Romeo and Juliet (also for the Royal Ballet).

Her 2021/22 engagements include the Helsingborg Symphony, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich for New Year’s concerts with Julian Pregardien, WDR Sinfonieorchester, and Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. With the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, she toured Spain with Maria Duenas and Germany with Nemanja Radulović. Alondra made her debut with the Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble, and returned to Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España.

Alondra de la Parra is also bringing “The Silence of Sound” to the stage, a multi-disciplinary performance she has created for all age groups. The show brings a full philharmonic orchestra centre stage for the first time as well as a clown performer.

It will premiere during a music festival curated, directed and realised by Alondra de la Parra in Mexico in June 2022 (www.festivalpaax.com)

Highlights of previous seasons include Carlos Padrissa’s highly acclaimed staged production of Mozart Thamos, King in Egypt with Camerata Salzburg and the theatre collective La Fura dels Baus at the 2019 Salzburg Mozartwoche (repeated at the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence), concerts with Orchestre de Paris (broadcast live on ARTE), Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Bamberger Symphoniker, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Verbier Festival Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and a live orchestral performance of the film West Side Story to a capacity 10,000 audience at Mexico’s Auditorio Nacional. 

In 2017, Alondra became the first ever Music Director of an Australian orchestra when she took up the position with Queensland Symphony Orchestra, a position she held until 2019.
 
Whilst studying piano and conducting at the Manhattan School of Music, Alondra founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas (POA) in 2004, aged 23. Her intention was to create an orchestra which serves as a platform to showcase young performers and composers from the Americas, placing music from the Americas amongst standard orchestral repertoire.  Their first recording, Mi Alma Mexicana (My Mexican Soul) was released by Sony Classical to celebrate Mexico’s Bicentennial Anniversary.  It reached the top 10 of the US Billboard Classical Charts and was the first ever classical recording in Mexico to achieve platinum sales, which it did within only 2 months.  She is an official Cultural Ambassador of Mexico.
 
She conducted the Staatskapelle Dresden in their 2019 Christmas Concert at Frauenkirche, which was broadcast by the German TV channel ZDF.  Over the past three years, Deutsche Welle has broadcast Musica Maestra, a television series devised and presented by Alondra, both as protagonist and reporter meeting a variety of artists from around the world.  Over the past three seasons, she has interviewed such guests as John Malkovich, Jan Lisiecki, Gautier Capuçon, Zenaida Yanowsky, and has filmed from such venues as Salzburg, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Monte Carlo, Mexico and Queensland.