LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LEONARD SLATKIN

CONDUCTOR | COMPOSER | AUTHOR

LATEST NEWS

Flying Blind: A Conductor’s Guide to Taking an Audition
By leonard slatkin
December 16, 2024

Leonard Slatkin shares his perspective on how string players should best approach a blind orchestral audition in a series of articles for The Strad.

Read more

leonard slatkin
Rave Reviews for Slatkin, Ax, and the NSO in Washington, D.C.
By leonard slatkin
November 15, 2024

Reviewers praised the opening performance of Slatkin’s program with the National Symphony Orchestra, which features Cindy McTee’s Double Play, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 with soloist Emanuel Ax, and Walton’s Symphony No. 1.

Read more

leonard slatkin

VIEW ALL NEWS ENTRIES

Upcoming Events

Latest from the Journal

DECEMBER 2024

By leonard slatkin

Reunions and a debut marked this past month, with a few side trips along the way. And of course, we had an election. More about that in a moment.

Nearly two years had passed since my last visit to the Detroit Symphony. As its music director laureate, I have the honor of being regarded as the grand old man with a degree of experience that can make a difference. I picked up right where I left off with the musicians who knew me during the ten years that I led the ensemble. Rehearsals were efficient and filled with musical information that needed to be digested quickly because we only had two days to rehearse instead of three. Absorbing the material is challenging when the schedule is condensed, especially for younger musicians who are unfamiliar with the repertoire.

Leonard Slatkin

Internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Slatkin is Music Director Laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO), Directeur Musical Honoraire of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL), Conductor Laureate of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, and Artistic Consultant to the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He maintains a rigorous schedule of guest conducting and is active as a composer, author, and educator.

A six-time Grammy winner and recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Slatkin also holds the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor. He has been awarded the Prix Charbonnier from the Federation of Alliances Françaises, Austria’s Decoration of Honor in Silver, and the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton. He received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Special Recognition Award for his debut book, Conducting Business (2012), which was followed by Leading Tones (2017) and Classical Crossroads: The Path Forward for Music in the 21^st Century (2021). His latest books are Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Twentieth Century (Rowman & Littlefield, spring 2024) and Eight Symphonic Masterworks of the Nineteenth Century (fall 2024), comprising essays that supplement the score-study process.

LEARN MORE