BIOGRAPHY

A poet of sounds, sculpting the orchestra’s sonority.

A winner of the Evgeny Svetlanov Conducting Competition and Luigi Mancinelli International Opera Conductors Competition, Valencia-born conductor Roberto Forés Veses conducts at many of the world’s leading orchestras and opera houses. Recent debuts have included the English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano (formerly ‘La Verdi’) and Israel Camerata Jerusalem. The forthcoming months will see debuts and returns with, among others, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Seville Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Pays de la Loire and English Chamber Orchestra. He will conduct the Nagoya Philharmonic in Japan. He will helm major opera productions at the opera houses of Zurich and Lausanne.

Roberto Forés Veses will take up the post of Principal Guest Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra, from the 2024 / 25 season, for an initial period of three years. From 2011 until 2021, Forés Veses was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Orchestre National d’Auvergne – where he presided over a chamber orchestra tradition famous across France and internationally, and oversaw the ensemble’s elevation to France’s ‘national’-level orchestras. Under his directorship, the ONA became much-in-demand as a recording orchestra – making many recordings, mainly for Warner Classics and boutique label Aparte Music, and in 2019 Forés Veses launched the orchestra’s own label. He has led the orchestra on several international tours, including to Japan, South-America and Brazil.

The many orchestras he has conducted also include, among many others, the NHK Symphony, Saint-Petersburg Symphony, Orchestre National de Lyon, State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Evgeny Svetlanov”, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Prague Philharmonia, Het Residentie Orchestra (Netherlands), Orquesta Sinfónica da Porto Casa da Música, Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, RTVE Symphony Orchestra (Madrid), Orquestra de la Comunidad Valenciana, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice. Opera is also close to his heart – he has conducted at the Bolshoi Opera, Teatro Regio Di Torino, at the opera companies of Montpellier, Helsinki, Lyon, Rouen, Saint-Etienne and elsewhere. Fores Veses regularly performs at many international festivals, including La Folle Journée de Nantes and Tokyo, La Chaise-Dieu, Murten Classics, Printemps des Arts (Monaco), Stresa Festival, Les Flâneries musicales de Reims, Festival de la Vézère, Festival de Polignac, Festival Bach en Combrailles and the Berlioz Festival. In 2018 he was invited to join select other Svetlanov Competition winners in a special festival marking the 90th anniversary of Svetlanov’s birth, at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow.

Maestro Forés Veses has made more than a dozen recordings. Recently released are Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Alena Baeva (Warner Classics); Strauss’s Metamorphosen with Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht; Mahler’s arrangement of Schubert’s Death And the Maiden, and symphonies by Roussel, Honegger and Jean Rivier. Coming soon is Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.1, one of the final recordings with Nicholas Angelich (Warner Classics).

PRESS QUOTES

“A remarkable talent. (Roberto Forés Veses) does not direct a score, he is the score…as some play an instrument, he plays the orchestra…in total fusion with the performers”
La Montagne

“Roberto Fores Veses coaxes admirably precise playing out of the strings of the Orchestre National d’Auvergne…these are fine performances, bringing out the full flavour of the music.”
BBC Music Magazine ****

“Music is at its best, thanks to the Spanish conductor Roberto Forés Veses who is leading the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and the Chœur de l’Opéra de Lausanne, and who knows how to highlight a sumptuous writing at the level of the orchestration and the ensembles with a generous melodic vein.”
Crescendo-magazine