Andrés Orozco-Estrada

Chief Conductor Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai 
Designate GMD of the City of Cologne and Gürzenich-Kapellmeister (from 2025/26)

Energy, elegance and spirit - that is what particularly distinguishes Andrés Orozco-Estrada as a musician. After a wonderful collaboration with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai in May 2022, Andrés Orozco-Estrada is appointed the new principal conductor of the Rai Orchestra from the 23/24 season.

From the 2025/26 season, he will take up the position of GMD of the city of Cologne and Gürzenich Kapellmeister. Orozco-Estrada attaches great importance to inspiring all the people of Cologne with music and for music, and to representing and presenting Cologne as a city of music internationally. Already in the coming season, he will be a guest at the Kölner Philharmonie with a special concert.

Debuts and re-invitations in the 23/24 season will take him to the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Swedish Radio, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Radio Sinfonieorchester Berlin, among others. He will also return to the hr-Sinfonieorchester (Principal Conductor 2014-2021) and the Houston Symphony Orchestra (Music Director 2014-2022).

He will accompany the SWR Symphony Orchestra on a tour of Spain and will also be on tour with the Filarmonica della Scala. Another highlight will be the European tour with his Filarmónica Joven de Colombia and violinist Hilary Hahn, which will take him to Paris, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Dortmund and Switzerland, among other places.

He will make his debuts at La Scala in Milan (NP, Mozart "Figaro") and at the Amsterdam Opera (NP Beethoven "Fidelio") where he will conduct the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest.

Orozco-Estrada also returns to the Staatsoper Berlin after numerous successful productions with a repeat performance of "Tosca".

Born in Medellín (Colombia), Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his musical education by playing the violin, receiving his first conducting lessons at the age of 15. In 1997 he moved to Vienna, where he was accepted into the conducting class of Uroš Lajovic, a student of the legendary Hans Swarowsky, at the renowned Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. Since October 2022, Orozco-Estrada has been professor of orchestral conducting at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts.