Ramón Tebar
José Ramón Tebar Sáiz is a conductor and pianist, currently Principal Conductor at Florida Grand Opera. He is Artistic Director of Opera Naples. He was Music Director of the Festival of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In March 2015, he was named Principal Guest Conductor of Spain's Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.Biography
Tebar began working as a pianist and Assistant Conductor in his home town at the age of fifteen. He was Assistant Conductor with the Youth National Orchestra of Spain, and graduated with honors in his hometown Conservatory: Special Honor Awards in Piano and Chamber Music Degrees; the Barenreiter Prize; Special Prize in the Musical Youth of Spain Competition; Medaille d´Honneur "Villa de Claira" and an Award at the III International Conducting Competition "Luigi Mancinelli".
As pianist and conductor he accompanied Montserrat Caballe, Teresa Berganza, Ileana Cotrubas, Mariella Devia, Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, Leo Nucci, Ben Heppner, Angela Gheorghiu, Maria Guleghina, Roberto Alagna, Gregory Kunde and Dawn Upshaw, in theaters like the National Auditorium in Madrid, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Kravis Center, Music Hall of Cincinnati, Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, Kolner Philharmonie in Germany and Grand Hall Oktyabrsky in St. Petersburg, Russia.
He arrived in the US in 2005 to work with Palm Beach Opera and Cincinnati Opera. In 2011 he was the first Spanish conductor to be appointed Music Director of an American opera company, the Florida Grand Opera. Tebar's guesting credits include Italy's Teatro Regio di Torino, Martina Franca Festival, and Teatro Lirico di Cagliari; Spain's Festival de Opera de a Coruna; Germany's Kolner Philharmonie; Russia's Kremlin Palace; Netherlands's Het Concertgebouw and Argentina's Teatro Colon. The Orquesta Sinfonica Ciudad de Oviedo and Orquesta de Radio Television Espanola in Spain; St. Petersburg Symphony and Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Het Gelders Orkest in the Netherlands; the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy, and La traviata y Madama Butterfly in Cincinnati, Miami and Detroit.
Florida Grand Opera honored him with the 2013 Henry C. Clark Conductor of the Year Award, a distinction he first received in 2010. He conducted La rondine, La vida breve, Rigoletto, Mourning Becomes Electra, Nabucco, Tosca, Thais, Carmen, Don Pasquale, Turandot, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Sonnambula, Cosi fan Tutte, I Puritani, L'Italiana in Algeri, Astor Piazzolla's Maria de Buenos Aires, Florencia en el Amazonas, etc.
In February 2015, Ramon Tebar was bestowed the Officer's Cross of the Spanish Order of Civil Merit granted to him by the King of Spain Felipe VI.
