José Antonio Montaño

Conductor José Antonio Montaño is a versatile musician with a large repertory, but he specializes in 18th century Spanish music and founded the period instrument orchestra La Madrileña. He is also a prominent educator. Montaño was born in 1975 in Madrid. He attended the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, earning degrees in piano, harpsichord, and music education. Montaño's training as a conductor came from Jesús López Cobos, Evelino Pidò, and Pinchas Steinberg, among others. By the late '90s, he was finding opera conducting opportunities, focusing on 18th century Spanish works, but his repertory extends as far forward as Benjamin Britten's children's work Let's Make an Opera ("The Little Sweep"), Op. 45. Montaño is a composer himself, and his opera La ciudad de Hamelin won the Opera J prize. His choral work Arrión was commissioned by the Coro de Cámara de Madrid. From 2003 to 2013, Montaño served as the principal conductor of the Orquesta Escuela de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, leading performances not only of instrumental works but also of opera and ballet; he has remained active in both those genres. He conducted several productions for the Ballet Nacional de España. From 2007 to 2009, he was also principal conductor of the Orquesta de la Universidad Juan Carlos III in Madrid. Montaño founded the historical instrument ensemble La Madrileña (meaning "from Madrid") in January of 2016 and remains its conductor and music director. With that group, he has appeared in many leading Spanish venues, including the Teatro Real and Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid, the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao, and the Auditorio Baluarte in Pamplona. He has appeared in major Italian houses, including La Scala in Milan, and also in theaters in Russia and Belgium. Montaño has a long record of guest conducting appearances in Spain and elsewhere, with such groups as the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, the Real Filharmonía of Galicia, and the Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Italy. In 2018, Montaño was commissioned by the Festival de Arte Sacro of the Community of Madrid to serve as conductor of the Requiem of José de Nebra on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of that composer's death. A recording of that work with Montaño conducting La Madrileña was issued by the Pan Classics label in 2019. Many of Montaño's performances have entailed musicological research, and he has compiled a digital database of 4,000 arias based on texts by librettist Pietro Metastasio. In 2023, Montaño and La Madrileña returned with countertenor Carlos Mena on the Sony Classical label with the album Dixerunt.
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