Lawrence Foster is an American conductor who has been music director of several major orchestras from California to Monaco to Spain and Israel and guest conductor of many others around the world. He has exhibited a special interest in the works of contemporary composers including Paul McCartney, whose oratorio 'Standing Stone' he conducted with the London Symphony Orchestra in the Royal Albert Hall. A recording of the performance was released in 1997.
Born in Los Angeles to a family from Romania, he took up the baton as a teenager, studied with Fritz Zweig, Karl Böhm and Bruno Walter and at the Bayreuth Festival. After a stint with Zubin Mehta at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, in 1969 he became chief guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic. His career has taken him around the world from his home in Monte Carlo, where he was music director of the city's orchestra and since 2002, he has been principal conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon. In 2012, he was named as music director of L'Opéra de Marseille and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille in France.
Known for championing 20th century composers and forgotten works, Foster's recording career began in 1968 when he led the MGM Studio Orchestra on Lalo Schifrin's score for the television documentary 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'. He made several albums with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1970s including two with violinist Itzhak Perlman performing Paganini and Sarasate, Dvorak, Bruch and Mendelssohn. He has recorded works by Franz Waxman and George Gershwin and Romanian composer George Enescu, including his opera 'Oedipe'.
