Acknowledged for his “sense of style and sophistication” by Opera News, noted as “an amazingly versatile conductor” by The Boston Globe, and praised for conducting with “admiral command” by The New York Times, Gil Rose is a musician shaping the future of classical music. Over the past two decades, Mr. Rose has built a reputation as one of the country’s most inventive and versatile conductors before the public. His dynamic performances and many recordings have garnered international critical praise.
In September 2013, he introduced a new company to the Boston opera scene, Odyssey Opera, dedicated to eclectic and underperformed operatic repertoire. Since the company’s inaugural performance of Wagner’s Rienzi, which took the Boston scene by storm, Odyssey Opera has continued to receive universal acclaim for its annual festivals with compelling themes and unique programs, presenting fully staged operatic works and concert performances of overlooked grand opera masterpieces. In the company’s first five years, Mr. Rose brought 22 operas to Boston and introduced the city to some important new artists. In 2016, Mr. Rose founded Odyssey Opera’s in-house recording label with its first release, Pietro Mascagni’s Zanetto. Other projects include a double disc of one-act operas by notable American composer Dominick Argento and the world premiere recording of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s The Importance of Being Earnest.
Formerly, Mr. Rose led Opera Boston as its Music Director starting in 2003, and in 2010 was appointed the company’s first Artistic Director. He led Opera Boston in several American and New England premieres including Shostakovich’s The Nose, Weber’s Der Freischütz, and Hindemith’s Cardillac. In 2009, Mr. Rose led the world premiere of Zhou Long’s Madame White Snake, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2011.
Mr. Rose also served as the Artistic Director of Opera Unlimited, a contemporary opera festival associated with Opera Boston. With Opera Unlimited, he led the world premiere of Elena Ruehr’s Toussaint Before the Spirits and the New England premiere of Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face, as well as the revival of John Harbison’s Full Moon in March and the North American premiere of Peter Eötvös’s Angels in America.
In 1996, Mr. Rose founded the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the foremost professional orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing and recording symphonic music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Under his leadership, BMOP has won fourteen ASCAP awards for adventurous programming and was selected as Musical America’s 2016 Ensemble of the Year, the first symphony orchestra to receive this distinction. An active recording artist, Mr. Rose serves as the Executive Producer of the BMOP/sound recording label. His extensive discography includes world premiere recordings of music by John Cage, Lukas Foss, Charles Fussell, Michael Gandolfi, Tod Machover, Steven Mackey, Evan Ziporyn, and many others on such labels as Albany, Arsis, Chandos, ECM, Naxos, New World, and BMOP/sound.
From 2012 to 2019, Rose was the Artistic Director of the longstanding Monadnock Music Festival in historic Peterborough, New Hampshire, where he conducted several premieres. He made his opera stage directing debut in two revivals of operas by Dominick Argento as well as conducting, directing, and producing the world premiere recording of Ned Rorem’s opera Our Town.
Mr. Rose maintains a busy schedule as a guest conductor on both the opera and symphonic platforms. He made his Tanglewood debut in 2002 and in 2003, he debuted with the Netherlands Radio Symphony at the Holland Festival. He has led the American Composers Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, and National Orchestra of Porto. In 2015, he made his Japanese debut substituting for Seiji Ozawa at the Matsumoto Festival conducting Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict, and in March 2016, made his debut with New York City Opera at the Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has since returned to City Opera in 2017 (as Conductor and Director) and 2018 conducting a Double Bill of Rameau & Donizetti’s Pigmalione. In 2019, he made his debut with the Juilliard Orchestra.
In 2007, Mr. Rose was awarded Columbia University’s prestigious Ditson Award as well as an ASCAP Concert Music Award for his exemplary commitment to new American music. He is a four-time GRAMMY® award nominee and a GRAMMY® award winner in 2020 for Best Opera Recording with BMOP/sound for Fantastic Mr. Fox.