Eduardo Portal, conductor

During the 2011/12 season, young Spanish conductor Eduardo Portal will make his débuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Lausanne Chamber and Vienna Chamber orchestras, the Tenerife, São Paulo and Madrid symphony orchestras (including performances with the latter at the Auditorio Nacional de Música de Madrid and the Teatro Real), and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia. Last season he made his débuts with the Hallé, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Northern Sinfonia, Manchester Camerata, Euskadi Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid and Orquesta del Vallés. Recent years have seen Eduardo conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Berline Symphoniker, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Orquesta Sinfónica de la Región de Murcia and National Youth Orchestra of Spain. His operatic experience includes performances of Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène, Janáčék’s Katya Kabanová, Bernstein’s Candide, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Handel’s Imeneo. In summer 2011 he assisted on Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Since graduating from the University of the Arts in Berlin and the Royal Academy of Music in London, Eduardo has held the position of Assistant Conductor at the London Philharmonic Orchestra (during the 2010/11 season), the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the National Youth Orchestra of Spain. Sir Mark Elder headed the jury that in 2008 unanimously voted Eduardo winner of the Junior Fellowship in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music, a position he held for two years. In 2008 Eduardo was chosen to conduct at the Interaction Workshops in Germany with musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden and baritone Thomas Quasthoff; later on he was invited to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra in a public masterclass with Sir Colin Davis, and he took part in several masterclasses with Bernard Haitink and Peter Eötvös, amongst others. Eduardo is particularly committed to contemporary repertoire and is founder of the Antares Ensemble in Spain, whose focus is on the performance of new music and research into its links with historical and rarely performed masterpieces.