Ángel Gil-Ordóñez

Ángel Gil-Ordóñez (born September 5, 1957) is a Spanish-born American musician, composer, and conductor. He co-founded the PostClassical Ensemble with music historian Joseph Horowitz and serves as its music director. He is also the principal guest conductor of New York’s Perspectives Ensemble and the music director of the Georgetown University Orchestra in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he serves as advisor for education and programming for Trinitate Philharmonia, a program in Mexico modeled on Venezuela’s El Sistema, and is also a regular guest conductor at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine.

Background Born in Madrid (Spain) on September 5, 1957, Gil-Ordóñez grew up in an intellectual family that valued Spanish culture. He focused on violin in his teens. For his university studies, he reached a compromise with his family: they would allow him to study toward becoming a professional musician at the Madrid Royal Conservatory if he would first study Engineering at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid.

Having completed both those degrees successfully, in 1974 he began higher-level music studies at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. There, he focused on violin, polyphony and choir conducting, harmony, counterpoint, and music history. He also studied in the Musical Analysis Master Classes with Jacques Chailley. He studied under Sergiu Celibidache for more than six years. He also studied with Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis in France.

In 1978, a concert of Sergiu Celibidache conducting the London Symphony Orchestra made Gil-Ordóñez decide he would become a conductor too. In 1983, he moved to France to study Contemporary Music at Paris's Centre Acanthes with Iannis Xenakis (composition), Irvine Arditti (violin), James Wood (choral conducting), and Claude Helffer and Rudolph Frisius (musical analysis). He also studied with Pierre Boulez (Conducting Master Classes) in Avignon.

Currently, he serves as follows: 2006 – La Real Orden de Isabel la Católica (Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic), Spain's highest civilian decoration, awarded by the king of Spain Various – named 3 times Naxos "Artist of the Week"

Works

Gil-Ordóñez appears on nine Naxos recordings. 2014 - Dvořák and America - Antonín Dvořák (conductor, arranger) 2014 - Xavier Montsalvatge: Madrigal sobre un tema popular / 5 Invocaciones al Crucificado / Folia daliniana - Xavier Montsalvatge (composer) 2013 - Madrigal sobre un tema popular, 5 Invocaciones al Crucificado, Folia daliniana - Xavier Montsalvatge (conductor) 2007 - The Plow that Broke the Plain, The River - Virgil Thomson (conductor)