Jose Serebrier

Jose Serebrier, violinist, composer and conductor, was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1938. He is considered to be one of the most recorded classical artists in history.  He has recorded with London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Bournemouth Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony, Czech State Philharmonic Brno, Weimar Staatskapelle, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras and many others. All his recordings in recent years have received Grammy Nominations.

Serebrier first conducted an orchestra at the age of eleven. It was his school orchestra, which he went on to tour the country with, allowing him to notch up over one hundred performances in only 4 years. When he was fifteen, he graduated from the Municipal School of Music in Montevideo after studying violin, solfege and Latin American folklore. Within two weeks of hearing that the National Orchestra, known as SODRE, was hosting a composition contest, Serebrier had composed his “Legend of Faust” overture. It won the competition but, much to Serebrier’s disappointment, he was not allowed to conduct it at the ceremony because he was only fifteen years old.

As a teenager, Serebrier worked for five years as Leopold Stokowsky’s Associate Conductor at New York’s Carnegie Hall. When Serebrier was only 21 years old, Stokowsky hailed him as “the greatest master of orchestral balance”.

When Serebrier won the Ford Foundation American Conductors Competition, he was discovered by George Szell and invited by him to become the Composer in Residence of the Cleveland Orchestra for Szell’s last two seasons. Serebrier was also the music director for one of America’s oldest music festivals in Worcester, Massachusetts. He organised Festival Miami, another American music festival and served as its artistic director for many years.

While studying with Vittorio Giannini at the Curtis Institute of Music, he was awarded a United States State Department Fellowship. Later, he studied at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland.

Serebrier wrote his first symphony when he was 17 years old; however his age still prevented him from conducting it himself. It was premiered by Leopold Stokowski. Serebrier finally made his conducting debut with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1965. Symphony No. 4 by Charles Ives was previously considered so difficult that it required 3 conductors. Serebrier, Stokowski and another conductor performed it this way in 1965, however a few years later, Stokowski conducted it on his own.

Serebrier won the Ditson Conductor’s Award for commitment to American music in 1976 and in 2004, he was the Best Classical Albym of 2004 award for his own work, the “Carmen Symphony” which is often said to be his best work.

Serebrier’s recorded collection is exceedingly extensive and in all, he has received 32 Grammy Nominations and 8 Grammy Awards.

As well as his roles as guest conductors for a number of the world’s most famous orchestras, Jose Serebrier has held many permanent conducting positions as well. This includes his position at the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 1982 and 1983.

Since 1975, when he was conducting “Proclamation for a Poor Easter” by Rodolfo Halffter and in his passion, stabbed himself through the hand with his baton, Serebrier has not conducted with a baton, instead using just his hands, quite like his fellow conductor and mentor Leopold Stokowski.

Serebrier has been on international tours with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Spain, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and many others.

Jose Serebrier’s style is often described as energetic, colourful and melodic.