This concert is the North Carolina Symphony debut for Louis Lohraseb. 

Since his professional debut at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in 2019, Louis Lohraseb has appeared with ensembles including the Semperoper Dresden, Los Angeles Opera, and Staatsoper Hamburg, where a reviewer said of a Mozart concert that the music “…sighs more clearly than elsewhere… showing pure emotions. Every one of his gestures was inviting and the result was an attentive sound that the singers could really adapt to” (Klassik begeistert).

The 2025/26 season has included Lohraseb’s debut with San Diego Opera, conducting Bizet's Carmen, and his Riverside Lyric Opera debut, conducting a gala concert. In June 2026, he makes his debut with Wolf Trap Opera. These engagements follow his Central City Opera debut with Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, as well as concerts with the Skaneateles Festival Orchestra and Colorado Springs Philharmonic. Recent seasons have included Semperoper Dresden (Carmen); Komische Oper Berlin (Verdi’s La traviata); Bizet, Puccini, and Mozart at Indiana University Opera Theatre; and gala concerts with Yale Opera and Summer Opera Tel Aviv. An accomplished pianist, he is a regular recital and chamber music partner.

Lohraseb was a recipient of the prestigious Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award in 2022. An alumnus of the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at the Los Angeles Opera, he has served as assistant conductor to music director James Conlon for numerous productions since 2017 at the Los Angeles Opera and the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In recognition of his work at Los Angeles Opera, he received the Eva and Marc Stein Artist Award in 2024.

Born to Iranian and Italian parents, Lohraseb was graduated summa cum laude from SUNY Geneseo. He has been a Conducting Fellow at the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Shin-ik Hahm and served as assistant conductor to Peter Oundjian, John Adams, and Krzysztof Penderecki, among others; with additional post-graduate coursework at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.