Boris Brott, conductor

            Boris Brott is one of the most internationally recognized Canadian conductors, holding major posts as music director and principal guest conductor in Canada, Europe and the United States. He enjoys an international career as guest conductor, educator, motivational speaker and cultural ambassador.
            Currently, Mr. Brott is founding music director and conductor laureate of the New West Symphony, California, the McGill Chamber Orchestra, Montreal and principal guest conductor of the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari Italy.  Maestro Brott is artistic director of Brott Music Festivals, which was established in 1988, as Ontario's principal classical music festivals and is home to the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, Canada’s unique professional training orchestra.
            Internationally, Mr. Brott has served as assistant conductor to the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, and as music director and conductor for the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden (two years), the Northern Sinfonia (five years), and the BBC Welsh Symphony (seven years).
            In addition, Mr. Brott’s extensive guest-conducting appearances have been in Mexico, the United States, South America, Central America, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Scandinavia, Japan, Korea, Israel, the Netherlands.
            In June 2000, Mr. Brott conducted Leonard Bernstein’s Mass for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican as part of Jubilee 2000. The renowned producer, Enrico Castiglione and film director Carlo de Palma released a DVD of this production which was seen by millions across southern Europe on the first anniversary of the September 11th tragedies. The DVD is being distributed in North America, Japan, Italy and France. Maestro Brott has also conducted the production of the Marriage of Figaro with The Rome Opera and opened the acclaimed Mediterranean Festival in Rome in July 2002.
            Mr. Brott has won prizes in major international competitions: the Pan American Conductors Prize in Mexico, the Liverpool Conductors Competition in Great Britain, and Dimitri Mitropoulos International Conductors Competition in New York, where he joined the ranks of Seiji Ozawa and Claudio Abbado as a Gold Medal Winner. In 1987, Mr. Brott was awarded Canada's highest civic honour, Officer of the Order of Canada. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law in 1988 at McMaster University, was made a Knight of Malta in 1990, selected as "International Man of the Year" by the International Biographical Center, in Cambridge England in 1992, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts of Great Britain in 1996. In December 2006 was inducted into the Order of Ontario, Canada, the province’s highest civilian decoration and most recently on April 5th 2007 he was awarded Tourism Hamilton’s  Lifetime Achievement Award and in November 2007, the National Child Day Award for introducing over 2 million young people to classical music.
            Boris Brott has a commitment to the development of new audiences and young artists. His programs have received rave reviews, in particular, a series of concerts bringing to life the great classical composers. The National Academy Orchestra, a unique mentor-apprentice program, in which emerging young musicians gain invaluable experience from working with seasoned professionals, stands as the centerpiece of his music festival in Ontario, Canada.
Besides numerous film and radio commitments, Mr. Brott has conducted, produced, and hosted over 100 television programs on both sides of the Atlantic. He has recorded for CBC, Septre-Mace, Mercury, Pro-Arte Records and Sony Classical where CD's with the late Glenn Gould have recently been released.
            Guest conducting engagements include appearances with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Toronto Symphony, Quebec Symphony, the Vancouver Symphony, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Bari Symphony, Italy, Jerusalem Symphony, Israel Chamber Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Holland, London Symphony Orchestra, England, the Rome Opera and the Mediterranean Festival in Rome.
            He has developed a corollary career as a motivational speaker giving 35 presentations annually to Fortune 500 companies around the world linking music and business. The speeches center around the "teamwork" and "creativity" aspects of music and business. A partial list of recent audiences included CEO's of IBM, American Express, American Airlines, Sandoz, Compaq, Intel, General Electric, Phizer, Pharmacia Upjohn, Sun Microsystems, and General Motors.
            Boris just completed his highly acclaimed 30 concert Brott Music Festival this summer that included Gianomenico Vaccari’s concert staging of Bizet’s Carmen and an evening featuring Orf’s Carmina Burana.
            Most recently Boris Brott has been appointed principal guest conductor of the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy. He will conduct two major productions of opera each season as well as orchestral concerts. He will work closely with Lorin Mazel who has been appointed musical consultant to the Theatre, one of the principal Opera Houses in Italy.
            Future projects in Italy include thirteen performances of Franco Zeferelli’s lavish production of Bizet’s Carmen at the famed amphitheatre, L’Arena di Verona in the summer of 2012,
            Boris comes to us from the fresh from the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, Italy where last week he conducted Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony the first of a Mahler cycle he has undertaken for the Theatre. In February of 2012 he will conduct seven performances of Verdi’s rarely performed La Battaglia di Legnano at the theatre.
            In May Boris will conduct the European premier of the newly re-mastered movie classic West Side Story in seven performances in Italy. The re-mastering featuring performance of the film with a live symphony orchestra was recently given its world premiere at the Hollywood Bowl and the New York Philharmonic.
            Boris looks forward to his continuing relationship with the New West Symphony as founding music director and conductor laureate.
            Boris Brott is married to Ardyth Webster Brott an author and attorney. Ardyth has two new books coming out this autumn, Here I am, the story of birth from the child’s perspective and The Piano, a biography of the Brott’s family piano from Germany to America.  The Brotts have three children.