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
Similar artists
Discography
66 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Bruch: Violin Concerto in G Minor - Korngold: Violin Concerto in D Major - Chausson: Poème
Arabella Steinbacher, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lawrence Foster
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on 1/03/2013
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Martinů: Double Concertos
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on 1/04/2018
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Kodály: Te Deum, Psalmus Hungaricus - Bartók: Cantata Profana, Transylvanian Dances
Lawrence Foster, Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra, Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 3/11/2023
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Puccini: Madama Butterfly
Melody Moore, Stefano Secco, Lawrence Foster, Orquestra Gulbenkian
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 19/11/2021
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Aber der Richtige…
Arabella Steinbacher, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Lawrence Foster
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on 30/10/2018
Available in24-Bit/48 kHz Stereo -
Fantasies, Rhapsodies and Daydreams
Arabella Steinbacher, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monté-Carlo, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 1/09/2016
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Chopin: Piano Concertos
Sa Chen, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lawrence Foster
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on 1/10/2008
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2
Marc Coppey, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR), Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by audite Musikproduktion on 1/01/2021
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Strauss: Die Fledermaus
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 1/11/2018
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18
Sa Chen, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lawrence Foster
Concertos - Released by PENTATONE on 24/04/2020
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Puccini: La Fanciulla del West
Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra of Cluj-Napoca, Lawrence Foster, Melody Moore
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 5/02/2021
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
R. Schumann: Complete Symphonies
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 12/02/2021
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Schumann: Complete Symphonies
Lawrence Foster, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 12/02/2021
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
R. Schumann: Complete Symphonies
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 12/02/2021
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Remembering Tebaldi
Melody Moore, Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra, Lawrence Foster, Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 18/08/2023
Available in24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo -
Mephistopheles & Other Bad Guys
Kevin Short, Marseille Philharmonic Orchestra, Opéra de Marseille Chorus, Lawrence Foster
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 3/08/2018
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Mephistopheles & Other Bad Guys
Lawrence Foster, Marseille Philharmonic Orchestra, Kevin Short
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 3/08/2018
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 - Grieg: Piano Concerto
Sa Chen, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 1/11/2011
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Verdi: Otello
Lawrence Foster, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Nikolai Schukoff, Melody Moore, Lester Lynch
Opera - Released by PENTATONE on 1/11/2017
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
Salieri: Requiem in C Minor - Beethoven: Meeresstille und Glückliche Fahrt - Schubert: Intende voci
Lawrence Foster, Orquestra Gulbenkian, Coro Gulbenkian
Sacred Vocal Music - Released by PENTATONE on 1/05/2010
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo -
A Certain Slant of Light
Lisa Delan, Marseille Philharmonic Orchestra, Lawrence Foster
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 20/04/2018
Available in24-Bit/96 kHz Stereo