American conductor Anthony Parnther is in his fifth season as music director of California’s San Bernardino Symphony. He is also conductor of the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, whose members hail from leading orchestras nationwide; he led the ensemble in its sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, featuring the world premiere of I Can by five-time GRAMMY-winner Jon Batiste. Mr. Parnther has conducted many of the world’s preeminent artists, from Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Jessye Norman, and Frederica von Stade to John Legend, Avenged Sevenfold, Wu-Tang Clan, Metro Boomin, and Rihanna. This season’s highlights include guest appearances with the New York Philharmonic; the Seattle, Cincinnati, Vancouver, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Nashville symphonies; and the Chineke! Orchestra, with which he recently made his BBC Proms debut. Other recent engagements include collaborations with the Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, National, San Francisco, and Sydney symphonies; the Los Angeles, Buffalo, Calgary, and Rochester philharmonics; the Hollywood Bowl and Royal Scottish National orchestras; and Los Angeles Opera. He made his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 2023.
Dedicated to amplifying traditionally underrepresented voices, Mr. Parnther has reconstructed and performed orchestral works by Margaret Bonds, Duke Ellington, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, among others. He also led LA Opera’s world premiere of Tamar-kali’s oratorio We Hold These Truths and Long Beach Opera’s revival of Anthony Davis’s The Central Park Five.
As one of today’s foremost film conductors, Mr. Parnther leads recording sessions for many of the world’s top international feature films and television series. 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, Oppenheimer, Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Book of Boba Fett, and League of Legends.