James DePreist
Laureate Music Director, Poet
James DePreist was permanent conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, director of conducting and orchestral studies at the Juilliard School and laureate music director of the Oregon Symphony. Widely esteemed as one of America’s finest conductors, during the past three decades he served as music director of L’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Sweden’s Malmö Symphony, L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo and the Oregon Symphony.
As a guest conductor he appeared with every major North American orchestra, and internationally he conducted in Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Manchester, Melbourne, Munich, Prague, Rome, Rotterdam, Seoul, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Tokyo and Vienna. He made his London début with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in April 2005.
James DePreist appeared regularly at the Aspen Music Festival, with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Music Center, and the Juilliard orchestras at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. With more than fifty recordings to his credit, he had a substantial presence in the recording arena. His varied recorded repertoire includes a celebrated Shostakovich series with the Helsinki Philharmonic and fifteen recordings with the Oregon Symphony which helped establish that orchestra as one of America’s finest. Born in Philadelphia in 1936, he studied composition with Vincent Persichetti at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1962, while on a state department tour in Bangkok, he contracted polio but recovered sufficiently to win a first prize in the Dimitri Mitropoulous International Conducting Competition. He was selected by Leonard Bernstein to be an assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1965–66 season. DePreist made his highly acclaimed European début with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 1969. In 1971 Antal Doráti chose him to become his associate conductor with the National Symphony in Washington, DC.
James DePreist was awarded thirteen honorary doctorates and the author of two books of poetry. He was an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and a recipient of the Insignia of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland, the Medal of the City of Québec and was an Officer of the Order of Cultural Merit of Monaco. In 2005 the president of the United States presented James DePreist with the National Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest honour for artistic excellence. He was the nephew of the legendary contralto Marian Anderson.