Robert Trevino

Conductor Robert Treviño rose quickly in his field and is active mostly in Europe. He is notable for being partly self-taught as a conductor. Treviño was born in 1984 to Mexican-American parents in Fort Worth, Texas. He has sometimes dropped the tilde over the "n" in his surname. Treviño grew up in poverty but was able to attend the University of Texas at Arlington. There, he formed his own orchestra and conducted it. Treviño moved on to Roosevelt University in Chicago. He eschewed a traditional conservatory education in favor of teaching himself as many scores as he could, a decision that would stand him in good stead when guest conductors were needed later in his career. He has benefited from instruction at the hands of David Zinman (at the Aspen Music Festival and School), Leif Segerstam (at the Helsinki Symphony Orchestra), and Michael Tilson Thomas (with whom he was invited to study after being spotted at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts). Treviño made his debut at age 20 in Wuppertal, Germany. In 2009, he became the associate conductor at the New York City Opera, moving to the same position at the Cincinnati Symphony, remaining there until 2015. In 2016, he made his recording debut on the Bridge label, conducting a small ensemble in a performance of Richard Wernick's Concerto for cello and ten players. Treviño's international career took off with several short-notice guest conducting appearances. In 2013, he substituted for Vassily Sinaisky in a Bolshoi Theater production of Verdi's Don Carlo in Moscow, inspiring a Russian critic to rave that "there has not been an American success of this magnitude in Moscow since Van Cliburn." He repeated the feat in 2017, replacing Daniel Harding in a London Symphony performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3, and again in 2018, substituting for Donald Runnicles in a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor with the Tonhalle Orchester in Zurich, Switzerland. For the 2017-2018 season, Treviño was named the music director of the Basque National Orchestra; his contract there has been extended into the mid-2020s. Treviño added the post of chief conductor of the Malmö Symphony to his portfolio in 2019. He has also guest conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, among many other groups. In 2019, he was signed to the Ondine label, which released his complete cycle of Beethoven's nine symphonies with the Malmö Symphony the following year. In 2020, Treviño also conducted the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra on a recording of the symphonies of Max Bruch, released on the CPO label. He remained active through the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing several albums on Ondine with the Basque National Orchestra; the music ranged from American orchestral works to Ravel to Einojuhani Rautavaara. In 2023, he led the Orchestra Sinfonia Nazionale della RAI on Ondine in a performance of Respighi's Roman Trilogy tone poems.
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