Biography
Chief Conductor Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai
Designate GMD of the City of Cologne and Gürzenich-Kapellmeister (from 2025/26)
Energy, elegance and spirit - that is what particularly distinguishes Andrés Orozco-Estrada as a musician. After a wonderful collaboration with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai in May 2022, Andrés Orozco-Estrada is appointed the new principal conductor of the Rai Orchestra from the 23/24 season, whose 30th anniversary he will celebrate in October 24 with two festive concerts in Turin.
From the 2025/26 season, he will take up the position of GMD of the city of Cologne and Gürzenich Kapellmeister. Orozco-Estrada attaches great importance to inspiring all the people of Cologne with music and for music, and to representing and presenting Cologne as a city of music internationally. This season, a series of performances of Carmen will mark his opera-debut as GMD-designate.
Right at the beginning of the 24-25 season, Orozco-Estrada makes his debut with performances of ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ at the Semperoper Dresden. Further debuts will take him to the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul and the Spanish National Orchestra (OCNE) in Madrid.
Orozco-Estrada has been re-invited to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Orchestre National de France, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and the radio orchestras of SWR, WDR and the DSO Berlin. He will also return to the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt (Principal Conductor 2014-2021) and the Houston Symphony Orchestra (Music Director 2014-2022).
Born in Medellín (Colombia), Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his musical education by playing the violin, receiving his first conducting lessons at the age of 15. In 1997 he moved to Vienna, where he was accepted into the conducting class of Uroš Lajovic, a student of the legendary Hans Swarowsky, at the renowned Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst.
Since October 2022, Orozco-Estrada has been professor of orchestral conducting at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts.