Perry So has extended his contract with the Baluarte Foundation, the public entity that manages the Navarre Symphony Orchestra, for another three years. Unanimously approved by the Baluarte Foundation Board of Trustees last May and effective from 1 September this year until 31 August 2028, this contract extension has been endorsed by a huge majority of the orchestra’s staff. The Board of Trustees valued the excellent artistic work carried out over these three seasons, as well as the cordial and fruitful relationship with the musicians, which is leading the NSO to a high degree of excellence and growing public support, reflected in an increase in subscriptions and ticket sales in general, both at the Baluarte Auditorium and in Tudela and Tafalla. The growing interaction with other cultural and social agents and the greater presence throughout the region have also been taken into account. Together with the expansion and extension of socio-educational activities, this has led to greater awareness and enjoyment of the orchestra among the public. With Perry So at the helm of the OSN, concerts open to the public have been reinstated in Pamplona’s Plaza del Castillo, attracting hundreds of people over the last two years. Nor should we forget the outstanding work carried out in recovering, preserving and showcasing Navarre’s rich musical heritage, and the growing presence of the OSN at major musical events and festivals throughout Spain. Perry So has conducted the official orchestra of Navarre during the Kursaal Eszena season in San Sebastián; at the National Auditorium, as part of the season of the Orchestra and Choir of the Community of Madrid (ORCAM); the Música Musika Festival in Bilbao, the Otoño Soriano Music Festival, the Religious Music Week in Cuenca and the Early Music Week in Estella.
Perry So was born in 1982 in Hong Kong, where he received his early training in piano, organ, violin, viola and composition. He graduated from Yale University with a degree in literature, specialising in Central European music and literature of the modernist period, during which time he founded an academic orchestra and conducted the university’s opera company. He studied conducting initially with James Sinclair and later with Gustav Meier at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. In 2008, Perry received First Prize and the Special Prize at the 5th International Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg. Following this recognition, he was appointed Assistant Conductor and then Associate Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel Conducting Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, artistic collaborator with the Principality of Asturias Symphony Orchestra, and member of the Conducting Department at the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently music director of the Navarra Symphony Orchestra and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra.
Miguel Osés/OSN
In recent seasons, Perry So has made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony, as well as his operatic debut in Europe with the Royal Danish Opera and The Magic Flute. Notable performances include a tour of Italy with the Nuremberg Symphony and a seven-week tour of South Africa conducting three different orchestras, during which he conducted Verdi’s Requiem. Other debuts in recent years include appearances with the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the symphony orchestras of Navarra, Málaga, Tenerife, Nuremberg, Israel, New Zealand, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Shanghai, the London, Szezcin, Seoul and China Philharmonic Orchestras, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz. In 2013, he toured the Balkan Peninsula with the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra in the first series of cultural exchanges established after the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Perry So’s recording work encompasses a wide range of 20th-century British, French and Russian music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Concert Orchestra, and his album of Barber and Korngold violin concertos with Alexander Gilman and the Cape Town Philharmonic received the Diapason d’Or in 2012. His wide-ranging musical interests include numerous world premieres on four continents, as well as the reintroduction of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire into symphonic programmes, particularly championing the works of Jean-Philippe Rameau. His work with young musicians has taken him to the Australian Youth Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the Round Top Festival, the Manhattan School of Music, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and the Yale School of Music.