Artists
Artists
Carlos Kalmar
ConductorCarlos Kalmar served as Principal Conductor of Grant Park Orchestra for 25 years (2000–2025). He was also named Artistic Director of the Grant Park Music Festival in 2011. He has guest conducted prestigious orchestras around the world, and has served the Music Director of the Oregon Symphony since 2003.
Carlos Kalmar served as Principal Conductor with the Grant Park Music Festival for 25 years (2000–2025). Under Kalmar’s leadership, the Festival’s reputation grew immensely: The Festival moved to its new home in Chicago’s Millennium Park in 2004, the Grant Park Orchestra released seven recordings over nine years on the Cedille Records label, while the Festival deepened its commitment to presenting adventurous programming.
Carlos Kalmar was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, to Austrian parents. He studied conducting in Vienna with Karl Randolf at the Konservatorium for Music and later with Karl Österreicher at the city’s College for Music, and won First Prize at Vienna’s Hans Swarowsky Conducting Competition in June 1984. From 1987 to 1991, he was Chief Conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra between 1991 and 1995. From 1996 through 2000, Carlos Kalmar was the General Music Director of the Opera House and Philharmonic Orchestra in Dessau, Germany. Between 2000 and 2003, he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna. Equally in demand as a guest conductor, Kalmar travels the globe appearing with all the world’s most important orchestras.
Carlos Kalmar has made eight recordings for Cedille Records. His recordings for other labels include CDs with the Jeunesse Musicales World Orchestra (Alban Gerhardt, cello soloist) and Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchestra for Austrian National Radio.
