Rafael Payare

Born in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, in 1980, Rafael Payare began his classical music training as part of the El Sistema program. From 2001 to 2012, he was principal horn with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. He also gained formative insights from Claudio Abbado, Gustavo Dudamel, Lorin Maazel, Sir Simon Rattle, and Giuseppe Sinopoli. Alongside his orchestral work, Payare began studying conducting with José Antonio Abreu in 2004 and won the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in 2012. Lorin Maazel then invited him to join his ­Castleton Festival in Virginia. From 2014 to 2019, Payare was Music Director of the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, which subsequently appointed him Conductor Laureate. He has served as Music Director of the San Diego Symphony since 2019 and, since 2022, as Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Rafael Payare has conducted such renowned orchestras as the Vienna and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. In the 2024–25 season, he took his Montreal orchestra on a European tour and performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. He also conducted a new production of Puccini’s Turandot at the Royal Opera House in London in March 2025. He has previously made opera appearances at the Glyndebourne Festival, the ­Berlin Staatsoper, and the Royal Opera Houses in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Rafael Payare is committed to supporting young musicians, particularly in his collaboration with the Royal College of Music in London, where he conducts the symphony orchestra every season. His most recent recording offers accounts of Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande and Verklärte Nacht with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.

March 2025