![Carlos Miguel Prieto FESTIVAL CENTRO HISTORICO](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Carlos_Miguel_Prieto_FESTIVAL_CENTRO_HISTORICO.jpg)
Carlos Miguel Prieto (born 14 November 1965) is a Mexican conductor. He is music director of the
Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico and the
Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria, of the
Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra
The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is an American orchestra based in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the only full-time, professional orchestra in the Gulf South. The orchestra performs at the Orpheum Theater.
The Louisiana Philharmonic Or ...
in New Orleans, and
The Orchestra of the Americas in Washington, D.C..
Early life and education
Prieto grew up in a musical family, with a cellist father, Carlos Prieto.
His family formed the Cuarteto Prieto, with which he played violin. His grandfather was on the board of Mexico's
National Symphony Orchestra
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1930, its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It also performs for the annual National Mem ...
. At an early age, he began playing violin, and continued playing music throughout his youth, including during his subsequent university studies. Prieto earned a degree in electrical engineering from Princeton. In 1992, he earned a Master's of Business Administration at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.
He worked for a sugar company before devoting full-time to music as a career.
Prieto attended conducting courses at the Pierre Monteux School in Maine, and at the
Tanglewood
Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the T ...
Music Center. He has studied conducting with
Jorge Mester
Jorge Mester (born April 10, 1935, Mexico City) is a Mexican conductor of Hungarian ancestry.
He has served as the artistic director for the Orquesta Filarmónica de Boca del Río, Veracruz, since it was founded in 2014.
Biography
He studied condu ...
,
Enrique Diemecke
Enrique Arturo Diemecke (born July 9, 1952) is a Mexican conductor, violinist and composer. He is currently the Artistic General Director of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and music director of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic and the Flint Symp ...
,
Charles Bruck
Charles Bruck (2 May 1911 – 16 July 1995) was a French-American conductor and teacher.
Bruck was born in a Jewish family in Temesvár, Banat, then in the Kingdom of Hungary, part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, since 1920 Timișoara in Roman ...
and Michael Jinbo.
Career
Prieto made his made his professional debut with the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra in 1995, and served as its music director from 1998 to 2002. In 2002, Prieto became Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Xalapa, a position he held until 2008. Prieto was named Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico in 2007. He was appointed music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in 2008, with which he founded the Mozart-Haydn Festival.
In the US, Prieto was assistant conductor of the
Houston Symphony Orchestra
The Houston Symphony is an American orchestra based in Houston, Texas. The orchestra is resident at the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts.
History
The first concert of what was to become the Houston Symphony took place on June 21, 1 ...
from 2003 to 2006, and music director of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra from 2003 to 2011. Prieto became music director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005, one week before
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...
hit New Orleans. The orchestra has extended his contract as the orchestra's music director twice, in 2009 and in 2013, with his current contract set through the 2018-2019 season. Prieto led the orchestra in its
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
debut on February 27, 2018.
Prieto has been associated with the Orchestra of the Americas from its inception in 2002. He was named Principal Conductor that year, and served in that role until 2011, when he was appointed Music Director. Prieto conducted over 100 world premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, many of which he commissioned.
In June 2021, the
North Carolina Symphony Orchestra announced that Prieto will act as the Raleigh-based orchestra's Artistic Advisor for the 2021-22 season. On February 23, 2022, the NCS announced the appointment of Prieto as its next Music Director. His initial four-year term as Music Director begins with the 2023-2024 season, and he will serve as Music Director Designate during the 2022-2023 season.
Prieto has recorded for the Urtext Records,
Sony Classical
Sony Classical is an American record label founded in 1924 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. In 1980, the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed as CBS Masterworks Records. The CBS Records Group was acquired by S ...
,
Naxos
Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abr ...
, and Avanticlassic labels. For Urtext, he has made a series of recordings of
Latin American
Latin Americans ( es, Latinoamericanos; pt, Latino-americanos; ) are the citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their diasporas are multi-eth ...
and
Mexican music
The music of Mexico is very diverse and features a wide range of musical genres and performance styles. It has been influenced by a variety of cultures, most notably deriving from the culture of the Europeans, Indigenous, and Africans. It also ...
. In 2013, a 12-DVD set of
Mahler
Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...
's symphonies was released, with the Orquestra Sinfonica de Mineria conducted by Prieto. In 2016,
Gabriela Montero
Gabriela Montero (born May 10, 1970) is a Venezuelan pianist, known in particular for her real-time improvisation of complex musical pieces on themes suggested by her audience and other sources, as well as for performances of standard classical r ...
, Prieto and the YOA Orchestra of the Americas won the Best Classical Album award at the Latin Grammy Awards for a recording of music by
Rachmaninov
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of ...
and
Gabriela Montero
Gabriela Montero (born May 10, 1970) is a Venezuelan pianist, known in particular for her real-time improvisation of complex musical pieces on themes suggested by her audience and other sources, as well as for performances of standard classical r ...
.
Prieto's honours include the Order of Orange-Nassau (Grade of Officer), from the government of the Netherlands, 'Conductor of the Year 2002' from the Mexican Union of Music and Theatre Critics, and the Mozart Medal of Honor presented by the Government of Mexico and the Embassy of Austria in 1998. In 2007, Prieto served as Mexico's delegate to the Davos World Economic Forum. In October 2018, ''
Musical America
''Musical America'' is the oldest American magazine on classical music, first appearing in 1898 in print and in 1999 online, at musicalamerica.com. It is published by Performing Arts Resources, LLC, of East Windsor, New Jersey.
History 1898–19 ...
'' named Prieto its 2019 Conductor of the Year.
Prieto and his wife Isabel Mariscal, a former ballerina with the Mexican National Ballet, have three children.
References
External links
Official website of Carlos Miguel PrietoIntermusica agency page on Carlos Miguel Prieto's pageLouisiana Philharmonic Orchestra page on Carlos Miguel Prieto
AllMusic.com page on Carlos Miguel PrietoLatin Grammy Awards, 2015, page on 'Mejor Álbum de Música Clásica''Conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto to Release 12 DVD Set & More'. Broadway World, 26 April 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prieto, Carlos Miguel
Living people
1965 births
Mexican conductors (music)
Male conductors (music)
Mexican classical violinists
Male classical violinists
Princeton University alumni
Harvard Business School alumni
National Conservatory of Music of Mexico alumni
21st-century conductors (music)
21st-century classical violinists
21st-century male musicians