Gustavo Gimeno


Gustavo Gimeno is a Spanish conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra and music director-designate of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Biography

The son of a clarinetist, Gimeno studied percussion and piano as a youth.
Gimeno joined the percussion section of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2001, and was named principal percussionist of the KCO in April 2002. During his career with the KCO, Gimeno continued his education at the Amsterdam Conservatory, with a focus on conducting. He received encouragement and mentoring from Mariss Jansons, and became an assistant conductor to Jansons with the KCO. He has participated in conducting master classes with Ed Spanjaard, Iván Fischer and Hans Vonk. Gimeno has also counted Claudio Abbado and Bernard Haitink among his other conducting mentors. In particular, he assisted Abbado with the Orchestra Mozart and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
Gimeno gained additional conducting experience with other orchestras in Amsterdam. From 2009 to 2012, he was chief conductor of the Amsterdams Symphonie Orkest Con Brio. He then was chief conductor of Het Orkest Amsterdam from 2012 to 2013. He left the KCO in 2013 to devote his career to conducting. Gimeno came to greater international attention in February 2014 in an emergency guest-conducting appearance with the KCO, substituting for Jansons, in a concert which included the Dutch premiere of the Piano Concerto No 2 by Magnus Lindberg.
Gimeno became principal conductor Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra at the start of the 2015-2016 season, his first full-time orchestral post, with an initial contract of 4 years. In March 2017, the OPL announced the extension of Gimeno's contract through the 2021-2022 season. Gimeno has made several commercial recordings with the OPL for the Pentatone label.
In February 2018, Gimeno first guest-conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. On the basis of this guest appearance, the TSO announced the appointment of Gimeno as its next music director, effective with the 2020-2021 season, with an initial contract of 5 years.
Gimeno and his family live in Amsterdam.