As the Conductor Emeritus of the Transylvania State Philharmonic, Lawrence Foster strenghtens even more the bond he has always had with the institution. 

Lawrence Foster is known for his exhilarating and expressive performances in a wide range of music, he enjoys a major career spanning the US, Europe and Asia. As a champion of the music of Enescu, his interpretations are renowned for their faithfulness to the score: ​“Lawrence Foster seems to have been put on this planet to conduct Enescu’s music. He is clearly a true believer and he understands every technical nuance and every expressive twist and turn” – The Telegraph.

After being the Music Director of Opéra de Marseille for nine years and Artistic and Chief Conductor of Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra for four years, this 2023/24 season, Lawrence Foster is invited to conduct an exciting variety of programs. On the operatic field, he will return to Frankfurt Opera and Enescu Festival to conduct a repertoire as diverse as Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve and symphonic programmes that include Brahms, Prokofiev, Enescu, Copland, Korngold, Kurt Weill, Beethoven, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Mahler, Berg, Penderecki, with orchestras such as Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Würth Philharmonic Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra and his regular collaborations with Opéra Marseille and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Lawrence Foster is one of the most iconic personalities of the classical music of the last years. Awarded with the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood in 1966, he became assistant conductor of Zubin Mehta at Los Angeles Philharmonic and chief Guest conductor of Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969. Since then, he has been music director at Houston Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Montpellier and Aspen Music Festival and School amongst many other positions.

Foster is particularly appreciated as an interpreter of the works of George Enescu and has made a comprehensive survey of commercial recordings of Enescu’s music. He served as artistic director of the George Enescu Festival from 1998 to 2001. In 2003, Foster was decorated by the Romanian President for services to Romanian music.

Foster has recorded a number of discs for Pentatone including Schumann’s symphonies, orchestral works by Kodály, Bartók and Ligeti, and piano and violin concertos by Bruch, Korngold, Rachmaninov, Grieg and Chopin, with various soloists. His recording of Enescu’s Oedipe was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie Charles Cros in France.