“A conductor for the future” with “a flourishing career” (The New York Times), Anthony Parnther is in his sixth season as Music Director of California’s San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra. As conductor of the Gateways Festival Orchestra, whose members hail from leading orchestras nationwide, Parnther led the ensemble at both its Chicago debut at Symphony Hall and its sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, which showcased a world premiere from five-time Grammy-winner Jon Batiste.
A master of multiple genres, Parnther has conducted many of the world’s preeminent artists, from Joshua Bell, Frederica von Stade, Lynn Harrell and Jessye Norman to Imagine Dragons, Avenged Sevenfold, Wu-Tang Clan, Metro Boomin, Rihanna and John Legend, whom he joins for summer dates with the Cincinnati Pops, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Diego Symphony and San Francisco Symphony. Over the coming months, Parnther also leads a revival of Anthony Davis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning opera The Central Park Five at Detroit Opera; makes his Chicago Symphony debut; and returns to the New York Philharmonic, Charlotte Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, Virginia Symphony and National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Recent engagements include collaborations with the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Music Academy, Nashville Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Vancouver Symphony and Chineke! Orchestra, with which the conductor made his debut at London’s BBC Proms.
Dedicated to amplifying traditionally underrepresented voices, Parnther has long “used his platforms and rising profile to champion Black composers” (The New York Times). He has reconstructed and performed orchestral works by Margaret Bonds, Duke Ellington, Zenobia Powell Perry, Florence Price, William Grant Still and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. In addition to leading L.A. Opera’s world premiere of Tamar-kali’s oratorio We Hold These Truths and Long Beach Opera’s revival of Davis’ The Central Park Five, Parnther has premiered and recorded works by the aforementioned Batiste, Davis, Perry, Price and Taylor, as well as Kris Bowers, Chanda Dancy, Adolphus Hailstork, Marian Harrison, Philip Herbert, Daniel Kidane, Gary Powell Nash, James Newton, George Walker, Errollyn Wallen, James Wilson and John Wineglass. For his extensive championing of works by Black, Latino and women composers, the conductor was profiled in 2015 as a “Local Hero” by Los Angeles PBS station SoCal/KCET.
Parnther has been hailed as “the quintessential L.A. musician of our day” (Los Angeles Times). As one of today’s foremost film conductors, he helms recording sessions for many of the world’s top international feature films and television series, working in close collaboration with some of the most decorated media composers on the scoring stages of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, Budapest, Glasgow and London. Recent projects include Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Encanto, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Nope, Creed III, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, Tenet, American Dad!, Turning Red, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett, League of Legends and the Grammy-winning Oppenheimer soundtrack.
Photo credit: Dario Acosta