The Maxine and Benjamin Swalin Chair

Carlos Miguel Prieto, Music Director Designate of the North Carolina Symphony, assumes the role of Music Director beginning with the 2023/24 season. He first appeared with the Symphony as guest conductor in 2011 and has conducted symphonies, choral works, and works by living composers in Raleigh and around the state. 

Carlos Miguel Prieto was born into a musical family of Spanish and French descent in Mexico City and is the foremost Mexican conductor of his generation. Since 2006 he has been Music Director of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, where his tenure concludes this month. He was Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México from 2007 to 2022, and in 2008 he was appointed Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería, which performs a series of summer programs in Mexico City. 

Prieto is in great demand as a guest conductor with orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and New World Symphony, and has enjoyed a particularly close and successful relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights include engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and Spanish National Orchestra.

Since 2002, alongside Gustavo Dudamel, Prieto has conducted the Youth Orchestra of the Americas (YOA). He served as Principal Conductor of the YOA from its inception until 2011, when he was appointed Music Director. He has also worked regularly with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and the NYO2 in New York.

Prieto has conducted over 100 world premieres of works by Mexican and American composers, many of which were commissioned by him, and has championed works by Black and African American composers such as Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and Courtney Bryan, among others. Among his many recordings, his rendition of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 & Études-tableaux Op. 33, with Boris Giltburg and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, won a 2018 Opus Klassik award and was listed as a Gramophone Critics’ Choice for 2017. His recording of Korngold’s Violin Concerto with Philippe Quint and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería received two Grammy nominations.  

Carlos Miguel Prieto was recognized by Musical America as the 2019 Conductor of the Year. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard universities, Prieto studied conducting with Jorge Mester, Enrique Diemecke, Charles Bruck, and Michael Jinbo.