Angel Gil-Ordóñez is a Spanish-born American conductor who 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 Spain on September 5, 1957, Gil-Ordoñez grew up in an intellectual family that valued Spanish culture. He focused on violin in his teens. For university, he reached a compromise with his family: they would allow him to study toward becoming a professional musician at the Madrid Conservatory of Music 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 Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid. 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's conducting the London Symphony Orchestrat decided him: he would become a conductor. In 1983, he moved to France to study Contemporary Music at Paris's Centre Acanthes with Iannis Xenakis, Irvine Arditti, James Wood, and Claude Helffer and Rudolph Frisius. He also studied with Pierre Boulez in Avignon. In 1985, he moved to Munich to study with Munich Philharmonic's conductor Sergiu Celibidache. He studied with: the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Hochschule für Musik Mainz, Master Classes in Cluny and Paris, and Conducting Courses at the Scuola di Alto Perfezionamiento Musicale in Saluzzo, Italy. He performed two assistantships at the Orchesterakademie des Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany. From 1985 to 1991, he broadened studies across European repertoire and studied composition with Günter Bialas, Paul Engel, and Fredrik Schwenk and violin with Rony Rogoff.
Conducting
In 1991, Gil-Ordóñez moved back to Spain for appointment to the National Symphony Orchestra of Spain as Associate Conductor. He founded the chamber orchestra Academia de Madrid, of which he became Music Director. He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Classical Orchestra of Madrid. In 1997, he came to Washington, DC, and founded musica aperta Washington, of which he was as Music Director 1997–2001. Also in 1997, he co-founded the IberArtistsNew York, Inc., of which he remains Music Director. In 2000, he toured Spain with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra for the Spanish premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass. On May 4, 2015, he led the Georgetown University Orchestra in a Cinco de Mayo performance for President Barack Obama. Currently, he serves as follows:
PostClassical Ensemble : Music Director and co-founder
Gil-Ordoñez is married with one child. He resides in Washington, DC. He became an American citizen in 2009.
Teaching
As an educator, Gil-Ordonez current serves as Adjunct Professor and Music Director at Georgetown University's Department of Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He also serves as the Music Director of the Georgetown University Orchestra.
