Alan Gilbert

Alan Gilbert (born February 23, 1967, New York, New York, U.S.) is an American conductor who is known for programming contemporary music along with the traditional repertoire and for his ability to communicate with and engage audiences.

Gilbert was the son of violinists Michael Gilbert and Yoko Takebe, both of whom eventually joined the New York Philharmonic. He received his early music education, including lessons on the violin and viola, from his parents. In 1989 he graduated from Harvard University, and he later received (1994) a master’s degree in music from the Juilliard School, New York City; he also studied at the Curtis Institute of Music. He was assistant conductor (1995–97) of the Cleveland Orchestra and in 1997 won the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductor Award. In 2000 Gilbert became the chief conductor and artistic adviser of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, a post he held until 2008. It was in Stockholm that he developed a reputation for venturesome programming, which included festivals devoted to such living composers as Henri Dutilleux, Hans Werner Henze, and John Adams. In addition, with that orchestra he recorded music by Daniel Börtz and Christopher Rouse. In 2004 Gilbert became the principal guest conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg (later called the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra). During this period he also conducted a number of other major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and orchestras in Japan and China. At the same time, Gilbert worked in opera, first at the Santa Fe (New Mexico) Opera, where in 2003 he became the company’s first music director, and later at such major houses as the Zürich Opera, the Vienna State Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

Gilbert first conducted the New York Philharmonic in 2001, and he led the orchestra on many subsequent occasions before his appointment in 2007 as the 25th music director. When he officially assumed the post two years later, he became, at age 42, one of the youngest music directors in the orchestra’s history and the first native New Yorker to hold the position. In early 2009 Gilbert also became the first holder of the newly created William Schuman Chair in Musical Studies at the Juilliard School. In 2011 he was named director of the school’s conducting and orchestral studies. Gilbert left the New York Philharmonic in 2017, and later that year he became chief conductor-designate at the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra; he officially assumed the post in 2019.