Lawrence Foster
Conductor Lawrence Foster also has a flourishing European career, having appeared with orchestras in many countries. He has a large repertory that includes opera and stretches from the Classical era to contemporary works.
Foster was born in Los Angeles on October 23, 1941. His parents were Romanian immigrants. Foster's father died when he was three, and he was adopted by his mother's second husband and given that man's surname. Foster took piano lessons in Los Angeles from Joanna Grauden and studied conducting with Fritz Zweig, making an unusually early conducting debut at 18 with a Los Angeles youth orchestra and being named conductor of the San Francisco Ballet that same year. Remaining in that position until 1965, Foster took further conducting lessons from Karl Böhm, Bruno Walter, and Franz Waxman, among others, also traveling to the Bayreuth Festival in the early '60s for its conducting master classes. Foster was named assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta in 1965. That year, he conducted the world premiere of Harrison Birtwistle's Tragoedia, and he has retained a strong commitment to new works. Studying at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts in 1966, he received the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize. In 1969, he became the chief guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic in Britain. His opera career began in that country with appearances at the Scottish Opera in 1974 and at Covent Garden in London in 1976. Among Foster's early recordings was one of works by Gershwin with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, released on the Erato label in 1983.
Foster began his career as the music director with that orchestra and went on to many other music director posts, including those at the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Catalunya, and the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, among other groups. He was the principal conductor of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and in 2013, he became the music director of Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier. As of the early 2020s, he was music director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille in France. His career in opera has been nearly as extensive, including stints at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Houston Grand Opera, and both the Opéra-Comique and Opéra Bastille in Paris, and he served as the music director of the Opéra de Marseille. Foster has an extensive recording career, having appeared on EMI, Teldec, PentaTone Classics, and many other labels. In 1997, he led the premiere recording of Paul McCartney's oratorio Standing Stone with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. By 2023, when he led the Gulbenkian Orchestra with violinist Arabella Steinbacher on a recording of violin concertos by Bruch and Korngold on PentaTone, his recording catalog comprised more than 75 albums.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Pablo Casals: El Pessebre
Lawrence Foster, Jordi Casas, Orquestra Simfonica de Barcelona, Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Musica
Classical - Released by naïve classique on Jan 1, 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 2 - Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3 & Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion
John Ogdon, Lawrence Foster, Malcolm Sargent
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Jan 1, 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Nielsen & Bruch: Violin Concertos
Lawrence Foster, Nikolaj Znaider, London Philharmonic Orchestra
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Oct 9, 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Enescu: Symphonies Nos. 1 - 3 & Vox Maris
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Apr 4, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bruch: Violin Concerto in G Minor - Korngold: Violin Concerto in D Major - Chausson: Poème
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Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on Mar 1, 2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel: Piano Concertos/Franck: Variations symphoniques/Fauré: Fantaisie
Alicia de Larrocha, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Lawrence Foster, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Jan 1, 1974
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Duos d'opérettes
Barbara Hendricks, Gino Quilico, Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Dec 15, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
A Certain Slant of Light
Lisa Delan, Marseille Philharmonic Orchestra, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by PentaTone on Apr 20, 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Kodály, Bartók & Ligeti
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Symphonies - Released by PentaTone on Nov 1, 2010
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
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Dukas : Symphony in C - Fauré : Pelléas et Mélisande
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16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2
Jean-Bernard Pommier, Hallé Orchestra, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Jan 1, 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann, R.: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2
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Classical - Released by PentaTone on Feb 26, 2008
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Bruch & Nielsen: Violin Concertos
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Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Oct 9, 2000
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Weber: Overtures
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Classical - Released by Claves Records on Jan 1, 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Sa Chen, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lawrence Foster
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on Apr 24, 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Gershwin : Rhapsody in Blue - Piano Concerto - An American in Paris (- Apex)
Classical - Released by Warner Classics International on Jan 1, 1983
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Waxman, F.: The Spirit of St. Louis / Ruth
George Shirley, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by CapriccioNR on Jan 1, 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Otello
Lawrence Foster, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Nikolai Schukoff, Melody Moore, Lester Lynch
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on Nov 1, 2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Martinů: Double Concertos
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on Apr 1, 2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo