Marcelo Lehninger’s most recent North Carolina Symphony concerts were in 2021 in Raleigh, where he conducted Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9 by Villa-Lobos, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, and Brahms’ First Symphony.

Brazilian-born Marcelo Lehninger was appointed Music Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2016. He previously served as Music Director of the New West Symphony in Los Angeles, for which the League of American Orchestras awarded him the Helen H. Thompson Award for Emerging Music Directors. For five years, Lehninger served as Assistant and then Associate Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Lehninger’s 2022/23 season includes debuts with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Bellingham Festival of Music, and Slovak State Philharmonic Košice in Slovakia, as well as returns to the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and to the Minas Gerais Philharmonic in Brazil.

As a guest conductor, Lehninger has led orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis, among many others. European highlights include engagements with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Orchestre national de France, and Prague Philharmonia, as well as regular visits to the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra.

Lehninger was Music Advisor of The Orchestra of the Americas for the 2007/08 season, conducting concerts in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Chosen by Kurt Masur in 2008, he was awarded the First Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Scholarship sponsored by the American Friends of the Mendelssohn Foundation. In 2011, he participated in the Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, conducting the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.

Lehninger has studied violin and piano and holds a Master's degree from the Conductors Institute at New York's Bard College. A dual citizen of Brazil and Germany, he is the son of Brazilian pianist Sônia Goulart and German violinist Erich Lehninger.