Orchestral Conducting
In 1964, at the age of 23, he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York. As part of his prize, he served for one year as assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic. On his return to the Netherlands, he was appointed assistant conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink.
In 1967, he was appointed conductor of both the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and was the latter's music director from 1973 to 1979.
De Waart made his début at the San Francisco Symphony in 1975. A year later, he became principal guest conductor, and from 1977 to 1985 he was its music director. From 1986 to 1995, he was music director of the Minnesota Orchestra.
In 1989, de Waart returned to the Netherlands where he was appointed music director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. He resigned from the post in 2004 and now he is the orchestra's conductor laureate.
De Waart became chief conductor and artistic adviser of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1993. In early 1999, after two successful terms with the orchestra, including taking it on a very well received tour of the United States, he announced he would be leaving by the end of the year. The orchestra's management was fully engaged in the process of finding his replacement, when he realised he loved the job so much that he decided to stay on longer. He left the post in 2003. While in Sydney, he made no secret of his dislike of the acoustics of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, the orchestra's home. He said ".. if there is no clear intention to do something to improve the hall, then we really seriously have to look at another venue".
In 2004, de Waart became artistic director and chief conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In November 2007, de Waart and the Hong Kong Philharmonic agreed on a contract extension of his tenure to 2012.
On January 3, 2008, de Waart was named the sixth music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and took up the post in September 2009. In March 2008, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra announced that de Waart is scheduled to become an Artistic Partner with the orchestra in the 2010-2011 season.
De Waart has been a guest conductor with the major orchestras throughout the world including the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
On March 10, 2010, de Waart announced that he would step down from the post of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of Hong Kong Philharmonic after the 2011-2012 season. A few weeks after that, on April 2, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra announced that de Waart received a contract extension with that organization through the 2016-2017 season. Also in April 2010, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic (deFilharmonie) announced de Waart had signed a contract to become its Chief Conductor for six seasons from the 2012-2013 season.
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