HANS GRAF
Artist in Residence
Music Director, Houston Symphony Orchestra
Music Director, Calgary Philharmonic
Conductor, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine

2234 Alice Pratt Brown Hall 713-348-4854

HANS GRAF, music director of the Houston Symphony, debuted with the Houston Symphony in March 2000 conducting Emanuel Ax in Adams' Century Rolls, with Schubert's The Great also on the program. Less than two years later, he took the podium as the orchestra's 15th music director.

The Austrian-born Graf is in his eighth season as music director of Canada's Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and his fifth season with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine in France.

Believing "there is something to learn from musicians and orchestras everyday," Graf guest conducts all over the globe. In the United States, he conducts in Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and with many other important orchestras.

Internationally, Graf often conducts in the major concert halls of Scandinavia, France, Italy, England, Japan and Australia. He has appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, as well as the St. Petersburg and Israel Philharmonics. He has been part of major European festivals including Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Savonlinna (Finland's Opera Festival), Prague Spring, Bregenz, Vienna, Aix en Provence, Orange and, most importantly, Salzburg (for 13 successive seasons).

An opera proponent for its "wonderful musical power and sense of human expression," Graf first conducted the Vienna State Opera in 1981 and has since appeared at major opera houses in Berlin, Munich, Paris and Rome. His extensive opera repertoire includes several premieres. Graf's discography includes Mozart's and Schubert's complete symphonies and the premiere recording of Zemlinski's opera Es war einmal. He is currently recording the complete orchestral works of Henri Dutilleux with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine.

Hans Graf's route to the podium was circuitous. Though he studied the violin with his father from age six and piano from age eight, he didn't enjoy music very much until his teenage years. By the time he had finished high school, he had already decided to make music a career. Through his brother-in-law, a fine musician, he discovered his love for the orchestral works of Debussy, Ravel, Bartók and Stravinsky and began to envision his future as a conductor. He trained in Graz, Italy and Russia.

"[Franco] Ferrara taught me how to conduct; [Arvid] Jansons showed me how to be a conductor," he told Richard Dyer of The Boston Globe. "These are not the same things." His international career was launched in 1979 when he was awarded the first prize at the Karl Böhm Competition. In 1984, he was appointed music director of the Mozarteum Orchester in Salzburg, a post he held for 10 years.

In June 2002, Graf was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government for championing French music around the world. When he isn't conducting, Hans Graf enjoys linguistics (he speaks five languages), fine wine and time with his friends and family. He and his wife, Margarita, have homes in Salzburg and Houston. They have one daughter, Anna, who lives in Paris.

Photo Credit: Bruce Bennett