CARLOS KALMAR was appointed Music Director of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra in 2003, and is also the Music Director of the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago. Until recently he was also Music Director of Vienna's Tonkunstlerorchester. During his career, he has been Music Director of the Hamburg Symphony, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and the Anhaltisches Theater in Dessau, Germany.

In 2006/07, Kalmar returns to the Dallas Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, and the Kansas City Philharmonic, and also conducts the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. During the past two seasons, Kalmar's guest-conducting engagements in North America have included concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Milwaukee Symphony, the New World Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. His international conducting appearances have included the Berlin Radio Symphony, the National Orchestra of Spain, the ORT Orchestra of Florence, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Hamburg State Opera, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Residentie, the Vienna State Opera, the Yomiuri Japan Orchestra, the Flemish Radio, and the Zurich Opera, among others.

Kalmar's recent recordings include the 2006 release of Szymanowski, Martinu, and Bartók Violin Concertos with the Grant Park Orchestra and Jennifer Koh, and the 2003 release of the Joachim and Brahms Violin Concertos featuring Rachel Barton and the Chicago Symphony, and American Works for Organ and Orchestrafeaturing David Schrader and the Grant Park Orchestra (2002), all on the Cedille Records label.

Carlos Kalmar was born in Uruguay in 1958 to Austrian parents. He showed an interest in music at an early age and began studying violin at age six. By age 15 his musical development led him to the Vienna Academy of Music where he studied conducting with Karl Osterreicher. He resides in Portland, Oregon, and Vienna with his wife and two daughters.

10/06