Danail Rachev is Music Director of the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, Oregon and Assistant Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Rachev succeeds Giancarlo Guerrero and previous Music Directors Marin Alsop and Miguel Harth-Bedoya as Music Director of Eugene Symphony Orchestra. Rachev will oversee all artistic activities of the orchestra, conduct the majority of their symphonic series concerts, programme the orchestra's concert seasons and engage internationally renowned guest artists to work with the orchestra.
Highlights of the 2009-10 season with Eugene include performances of all the Beethoven piano concerti with soloists including Angela Hewitt and Garrick Ohlsson; conducting John Adams' concerto The Dharma at Big Sur with Tracy Silverman on electric violin and conducting Mozart’s Coronation Mass with Eugene Symphony Chorus. Rachev will also conduct concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra and will travel with the orchestra on their tour to Asia.
The 2008-09 season saw Rachev return to Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and make debuts with the SWR Stuttgart, Orquestra Nacional do Porto and Nashville Symphony. Future highlights include debuts guest conducting concerts with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.
Rachev was Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 2005-2008 where he led numerous public concerts and education programmes. Of his main series debut The Dallas Morning News wrote: "One of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's best concerts of the past year....start to finish, assistant conductor Danail Rachev got the music unfailingly right, and viscerally compelling."
In 2002-03 Rachev was the first ever Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony where he studied with Michael Tilson Thomas and worked alongside him on many occasions. His debut and subsequent appearances in numerous subscription, family, and chamber music concerts were met with consistent critical acclaim. In his native Bulgaria Rachev has worked with several ensembles including the Russe State Opera, where he led performances of Donizetti's Don Pasquale and Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Danail Rachev was born in Shumen, Bulgaria and trained at the State Musical Academy in Sofia, where he received degrees in orchestral and choral conducting. He moved to the United States to study at the Peabody Conservatory on a full scholarship, graduating in 2001. His conducting teachers have included Gustav Meier, Michael Tilson Thomas, Vassil Kazandjiev, David Zinman, and Leonard Slatkin.
Danail Rachev is represented by Intermusica.
July 2009 / 375 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.