Alan Gilbert has risen swiftly to the top of his profession, appearing regularly with many of the world's leading orchestras. Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra since January 2000, Gilbert also took up the post of Principal Guest Conductor of Hamburg's NDR Symphony Orchestra in the 2004/2005 season. Acclaimed for the breadth of his programming choices, Gilbert has been widely praised for his performances of both standard and contemporary repertoire. He has also quickly developed a reputation as an opera conductor of distinction, beginning his tenure as the first Music Director in the Santa Fe Opera's history in October 2003.

The 2005/2006 season has already featured a number of important milestones for Alan Gilbert. In October 2005 he brought the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra to America for its first performances at New York's Carnegie Hall in more than two decades. He has also returned this season to conduct Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He lead the NDR Symphony Orchestra on a multi-city tour of Japan in November 2005 and will do so again on a tour of Switzerland in June 2006. He made a highly successful debut with the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester, Berlin in January 2006. He was proclaimed "a new podium god," making "a Berlin debut like a thunderclap" according to Klaus Geitel in the Berliner Morgenpost. This was swiftly followed by a return to Berlin a few weeks later when he stepped in for an indisposed Bernard Haitink for performances with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in February 2006 which received great critical acclaim. In the spring of 2006, Gilbert returns to the Zurich Opera House to conduct Puccini's Turandot and in summer 2006 he returns to the Santa Fe Opera to conduct two new productions -including the U.S. premiere of Thomas Adés's The Tempest-and a special Gala celebrating the company's 50th Anniversary season.

Alan Gilbert regularly conducts America's top orchestras. Last season he appeared with the San Francisco Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Following the performance with the Chicago Symphony, a critic for the Chicago Tribune observed, "In each score, the orchestra came through splendidly for the dynamic New Yorker. ...Here is a young man to watch." In recent seasons Gilbert has also appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony. The New York Philharmonic announced in June 2004 that Gilbert has been chosen by Music Director Lorin Maazel to conduct two weeks each season from 2006-07 through 2008-09, the last three of Maestro Maazel's New York tenure. Gilbert will also return to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra regularly in coming seasons.

In addition to his work with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, he regularly conducts other major European ensembles such as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra, Munich's Bayerischer Rundfunk, the Orchestre National de Lyon, and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

In Asia, Mr. Gilbert frequently conducts in Japan - where he took his Stockholm Orchestra on a major, critically acclaimed tour last season - and enjoys a strong relationship with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. He has also worked with the Tokyo Symphony, the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra and the New Japan Philharmonic. In China he has conducted the China Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in a nationally televised concert from Beijing.

Alan Gilbert is increasingly active as an opera conductor in both Europe and the U.S. Following his debut with the Zurich Opera in a new production of Zemlinsky's Der Kreidekreis (The Chalk Circle), a critic for Berne's Der Bund reported, "Alan Gilbert proves to be a podium star with a finely honed ability to bring out both nuances and broad colours from an orchestra: this is a promising engagement for the future." This promise was more than fulfilled in summer 2005, when he led two new superb and widely acclaimed productions at the Santa Fe Opera: Puccini's Turandot and Britten's Peter Grimes.

Alan Gilbert was born in New York and began playing violin as a child. His parents, both violinists in the New York Philharmonic, were his first teachers. He studied at Harvard, the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School and has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Seaver / National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award in 1997.

Mr. Gilbert continues to perform chamber music regularly - with such collaborators as Lynn Harrell, Joseph Kalichstein, Cho-Liang Lin , and Pinchas Zukerman - and was a substitute violinist with the Philadelphia Orchestra for two years. During the summer of 1993 he was assistant concertmaster of the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. He was Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1995 to 1997.