Charles Olivieri-Munroe - Conductor
Charles Olivieri-Munroe's website
Charles Olivieri-Munroe is currently in his 11th season as Chief Conductor of the North Czech Philharmonic in Teplice and from this season also holds the position of Principal Conductor of the Colorado ‘Crested Butte’ Festival in the USA and Artistic Director of the Inter-Regionales Symfonie Orchester in Germany. Under his leadership the North Czech Philharmonic has grown in size and has rapidly risen to national prominence through highly praised recording projects, commissions of new music, world premieres and live broadcasts, whilst his recent recording contract with SONY-BMG saw a first CD recorded in Prague in May 2008. He has previously held positions as Chief conductor of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava (2001-2004) and as Resident Conductor of the Brno Philharmonic (1995-97) and Karlsbad Symphony Orchestra (1993-95) and as Permanent Conductor of Brno Chamber Opera (1992-94). Increasingly recognised in the international press for his innovative programming, interpretation of Slavic repertoire and his passion for purity of orchestral sound, Charles Olivieri-Munroe's hold on public imagination stems from a combination of talent and charisma.
Charles Olivieri-Munroe’s career takes him across five continents, appearing with many of the world’s finest orchestras which have included the Israel Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Deutches Symphonie-Orchester, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony, Budapest Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Royal Brussels Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Symphony Orchestra and orchestras in New York, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Athens, Istanbul, Lisbon, Tokyo, Seoul and Mexico City.
In the opera house, Charles Olivieri-Munroe has appeared at the Berlin Komische Oper conducting Verdi’s Falstaff, at Il Teatro Fenice in Venice and in Amsterdam where he presented the Netherlands National Ballet in a crossover production entitled Body and Voice and during his time with the Brno Chamber Opera he led such diverse productions as Handel’s Acis and Galatea and Czech composer Ilya Hurnik’s Diogenes. Last season he made his conducting debut in Milan conducting Mozart’s Don Giovanni and at the Prague National Opera leading Dvorak’s Stabat Mater - this to be followed in 2010 with a new production of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin. He opened the North Czech Philharmonic’s current season with a concert performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and he will conduct three performances of Verdi’s Falstaff in Colorado.
Charles Olivieri-Munroe was born in Toronto where he studied the piano with the eminent pedagogue, Boris Berlin, at the Royal Conservatory of Music and at the University of Toronto. Following his graduation in 1992 he won three Ontario scholarships to study conducting with Otakar Trhlik at the Janacek Academy of Music in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He was also a student of Jiri Belohlavek and spent two summers (1995/96) at L’Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena studying with Ilja Musin and Yuri Temirkanov. In 1997 Charles Olivieri-Munroe was a recipient of the $20,000 career grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. His international career was launched by a series of triumphs in international competitions which included First Prize in the Dinu Niculescu Competition in Rumania and as a laureate of three competitions: the Antonio Pedrotti Competition in Italy, Lovro Von Matacic Competition in Zagreb and the Gregorz Fitelberg Competition in Katowice, Poland, culminating in First Prize at the ‘Prague Spring International Music Festival’ Conducting Competition in 2000 when he also won the prizes offered by Supraphon Records, City of Prague and Czech Radio.
Now aged 39, Charles Olivieri-Munroe is a key personality with the major musical institutions in Prague including the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Spring International Festival and Prague Academy of Music where he has recently been appointed to the conducting faculty by Jiri Belohlavek. He has also made the extraordinary discovery in Toronto of the legendary Czech conductor Karel Ancerl’s composition ‘Sinfonietta’ which he will be conducting in several commemorative performances.
February 2009