JURAJ VALCUHA holds the post of Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Torino. The Slovakian conductor studied composition, conducting, and cimbalom at the Bratislava Conservatory. He spent two years in St. Petersburg and studied conducting with Ilya Musin. In 1998 he moved to Paris, where he studied with Janos Fürst.

Valcuha was Assistant Music Director of the Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier from 2003 to 2005. Contemporaneously he made his debuts with the Orchestre National de France (with whom he recorded Alaleona’s opera Mirra) and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France.

In the seasons 2005, 2006, and 2007 he conducted the Orchestre National de France in the double-bill of Debussy’s La Chute de la Maison Usher and Chapochnikov’s Le Jardin Empoisonné, conducted La bohème in Paris and at the Teatro Comunale Bologna, and led Bartók Bluebeard/Poulenc La Voix Humaine at the Opéra de Lyon. He led the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo in the New Year’s concert.

In 2007/2008 season he conducted the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the RAI Orchestra in Torino, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the DSO Berlin, and the Oslo Philharmonic. He made his debut with the Munich Philharmonic as well as his U.S. debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

In 2008/2009 he made his debuts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Swedish Radio Orchestra. He led the Orchestra Verdi in Milan, the RAI Orchestra Torino, and the Philharmonia, and he conducted a tribute to Toscanini in Parma. He made his debut with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Deutsche Oper Berlin (both with Butterfly), and he led the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice in Venice and in the first “Abu Dhabi Classics” season. During the summer of 2009 he made his Hollywood Bowl debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

In 2009/2010 he opened the season of the Munich Philharmonic and made his debut with the Staatskapelle Dresden. He also appeared with the Philharmonia, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio, and again with the Pittsburgh Symphony and with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. At the Bavarian State Opera he conducted a new production of Donizetti’s Elisir d’amore plus performances of Le nozze di Figaro, as well as Turandot at the Stuttgart Opera.

In 2010/11 he conducts the New Year’s concerts of the Munich Philharmonic with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as well as Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and appears with the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia Rome, the Orchestre de Paris, the Philharmonia London, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Florence, and the Houston Symphony. He conducts a new production of La bohème at Teatro La Fenice in Venice. With his RAI Orchestra he appears on tour at the Berlin Philharmonie and the Musikverein in Vienna, as well as in the “Abu Dhabi Classics” series with Yo-Yo Ma.

In 2011/2012 Juraj Valcuha will make his debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the New York Philharmonic, and the Boston Symphony. He will return to the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Orchestre de Paris, the Cincinnati Symphony, the National Symphony in Washington, the Philharmonia in London, and the Munich Philharmonic.