RUBÉN CAPRILES

Rubén Capriles starts this 2020- 2021 Season his second season as Artistic Director of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Venezuela, as well as his first season as Music Director Emeritus of the Falcón Symphony Orchestra in Coro, Venezuela, after a successful tenure of seven seasons as Music Director of this highly prestigious organization.

After completing his tenure of two years as President and Music Director of the Baltimore Philharmonia Orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland, where Capriles pursued his graduate orchestral conducting studies at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Capriles started since 2013 a steady conducting career developing to national and international acclaim the Falcon Symphony Orchestra.

During his years of studies Capriles developed a close relationship with the Baltimore musical community, not only as graduate conducting assistant of the Peabody Conservatory Conducting Program Orchestras, but also as Cover Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Director of Orchestras at the Baltimore School for the Arts, and as Administrative Assistant of the Peabody Youth Orchestra at the Peabody Preparatory.

Other responsibilities during those years of studies in the US included being founding Conductor of the Young Musicians Program Youth Orchestra at the University of California, Berkeley.

Awarded with the 2010 Bruno Walter Conducting Fellowship as Assistant Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Academy, Capriles has had his conducting described by his fellow colleagues as passionate and intelligent. Capriles has been finalist of the First Eduardo Mata International Conducting Competition in Mexico City, and of the Sixth Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

As one of the selected conducting fellows at the 2007 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music Capriles was nominated for the Thelma A. Robinson Award of the Conductors Guild. He has been recipient of the Mabelle Antionette Leonhardtsen del Mar Scholarship of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and has been awarded with the José Félix Ribas National Order from the Venezuelan government for his contributions to the arts.

Capriles started to conduct professionally at 21 in his native Venezuela as the Music Director of the Zulia Boys Singer Orchestra, and later as the founding Music Director of the Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra. After his five-year tenure there, the Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra developed a strong and consistent artistic level, becoming a vital part of Venezuela's now internationally renowned El Sistema. Dedicated to the distinguished members of the diplomatic body of the country, his debut concert with the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela was immediately broadcast in the Venezuelan national television, with the highest recognition by the critics in attendance. As laureate guest conductor of the Regional Orchestras of Venezuela, Capriles toured extensively around the country, also conducting the Caracas Municipal Symphony Orchestra and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Venezuela. In 2005, Capriles was appointed as Music Director of the Ciudad Guayana Symphony Orchestra, where he developed intensive programming of more than sixty concerts during that season across the expansive Guayana region, obtaining the national recognition of the Federation of Regional Orchestras of Venezuela.

The Kalamazoo Gazette praised Capriles’ conducting as the “most satisfying… His sweeping baton captured the romantic flavor of Berlioz’s composition. Ensemble remained tight and balanced, making for countless musical thrills” Among his most recent international engagements stands out his guest conducting appearance with the German Chamber Orchestra for its Silvesterkonzert at the Kammermusiksaal of the Berlin Philharmonie.

As a committed teacher, Capriles currently serves at the Board of Directors of the Conductors Guild, and has been invited as principal instructor in the National Academy for Conductors that is organized by Venezuela's El Sistema to enhance the preparation of the new generation of conductors from around the country. A strong advocate of young composers of his generation, Capriles has supported and recorded new award-winning orchestral and chamber works at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and at the “Simón Bolívar” Conservatory of Venezuela’s El Sistema.

Capriles graduated under the guidance of José Antonio Abreu as the top conductor of his generation at the internationally renowned El Sistema, where he received his pre-college and undergraduate training in Horn, Theory, Solfège, Composition and Conducting. Before pursuing his graduate studies in Conducting, Capriles performed professionally for two years in the horn sections of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in Caracas, and the Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra in Maracaibo, Venezuela. Capriles completed his MM studies in Conducting at the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, and his DMA studies in Conducting at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He holds MBA and MPP degrees from IESA in Caracas, and completed MA readings in Political Science at Columbia University in New York. His primary conducting teachers have been José Antonio Abreu, Gustav Meier, Helmuth Rilling, Marin Alsop and Markand Thakar.

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