Christopher Seaman

Christopher Seaman

2007-2008 marks Music Director Christopher Seaman's tenth season with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. This internationally renowned British conductor has become an integral part of the RPO and the greater Rochester community, and is recognized as having raised the artistic level of the Orchestra to its present excellence.

Recognized worldwide as one of today's leading conductors, he completed a highly successful tenure as conductor-in-residence at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, where he had worked with former RPO Music Director David Zinman since 1987. Other tenures have included Principal Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony and the Northern Sinfonia.

Highly sought-after as a guest conductor throughout the world and noted for his strong command of a broad repertoire, Mr. Seaman has had regular engagements in North America, Israel, Eastern Europe, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Great Britain.

Recent guest conducting engagements in the U.S. – many of them return engagements – have included the orchestras of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, Detroit, Columbus, Seattle and Utah, as well as at Chicago's Grant Park Festival. He has previously conducted the orchestras of Saint Louis, New Jersey, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Colorado, Louisville and Atlanta. In the summer of 2003, he taught at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen.

Abroad, his schedule has included concerts with all of the London orchestras; the major United Kingdom orchestras including the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra and the various BBC orchestras. He also has led the symphony orchestras of Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, Trondheim and the North German Philharmonic, among others, and will make return visits.

In recent seasons, Mr. Seaman has enjoyed regular visits to Australia, where he conducted the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and has been involved in the training of young conductors. In the summer of 2004, Mr. Seaman went on a six-week tour of Australia which included concerts at the Sydney Opera House.

His recordings include performances with the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Britain. Mr. Seaman has recorded two CDs with the RPO, one with pianist Jon Nakamatsu which was released in September 2001, and one with pianist Olga Kern, which was released in the fall of 2003 and hailed by the Democrat and Chronicle as "sensational."