Conductor Juanjo Mena was born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain on September 21, 1965. He began his musical journey when he attended the Vitoria-Gasteiz Conservatory and the Madrid Royal Conservatory. Armed with a scholarship, he continued studying conducting in Munich, Germany with Sergiu Celibadache. He was selected to form the Youth Orchestra of Euskal Herria in 1997 before becoming the Euskadi Symphony Orchestra’s associate conductor. Juanjo Mena then became the artistic director and principal conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra between 1999 and 2008, also serving as guest conductor for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (2004). In 2007, he began a three-year stint as the principal guest conductor of the Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa and occupied the same position for Norway’s Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for six years (2007-2013). After conducting the BBC Philharmonic several times, he was appointed as their ninth chief conductor in 2010, a contract that was extended several times until 2018. He also became the principal guest conductor for the Orquesta Nacional de España in 2016, the same year he became the principal conductor for the Cincinnati May Festival. Juanjo Mena has also conducted for the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, The NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo, Japan), and many others. His vast catalog of recordings include Montsalvatge: Partita 1958, Cinco Cancione Negras, Calidoscopi simfònic & Simfonia de Rèquiem (2012), Turina: Danzas fantásticas (2013), Ginastera : Orchestral Works, Vol. 1 (2016), Claude Baker: Piano Concerto "From Noon to Starry Night" & Aus Schwanengesang (Live) (2017), Arriaga: Overtures, Herminie & Other Works (2019), Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 (2021), and Luke Bedford: In the Voices of the Living (2023).
