Edo de Waart began his career as an Assistant Conductor to Leonard Bernstein and is now a world authority on Beethoven. Frank Zappa has called him "the Paul McCartney of classical music".
He is Music Director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.
He was previously Music Director of the the San Francisco Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony orchestras; he was also Chief Conductor of De Nederlandse Opera.
He has conducted at Bayreuth, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Opéra de Bastille, Santa Fe Opera, and The Metropolitan Opera.
He will lead the NZSO in a Beethoven Festival in August that will see the Orchestra perform all nine of Beethoven's symphonies in Auckland and Wellington.
Edo de Waart Photo: ©Stephen A'Court Photography
