He is an orchestral conductor born in Burgos,
Spain.He was educated at the Bilbao and Madrid Conservatories,
studying piano, theory, composition and violin and later concentrated on
conducting at the Munich Hochschule fur Musik. He has been a Principal Conductor of
orchestras that include Bilbao Orchestra, Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony
Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra and his current position at the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester, Berlin.As a
guest conductor he has led orchestras such as the Vienna
Philharmonic, Berlin
Philharmonic and London
Symphony Orchestra, New
York Philharmonic
and the National Symphony Orchestra of
Washington.With over 100
recordings to his credit he has won many awards including an honorary
doctorate from the University of Navarra
in Spain,
the Gold Medal from the Gustav Mahler International Society, and in 2001 he
was honoured with the Grand Cross of Civil Merit from the GermanFederalRepublic.
