María Guinand, Guest Conductor

Born: 1953 in Caracas, Venezuela

Education: Bristol University (England)

Studied conducting with: Alberto Grau, Helmuth Rilling, Luigi Agustoni and Johannes B. Goeschl

Specialty: Latin American choral music of the 20th and 21st centuries

Conducts: Cantoría Alberto Grau and the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela; the National Symphonic Choir of Venezuela which collaborates closely with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Youth Orhcestra since 1980; she has prepared choirs for many conductors including Rattle, Abbado, Rilling, Mata, Alcantara, Grau, Abreu, and Penderecki.

Premieres: Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasíon según San Marcos (St. Mark’ s Passion) during the 2000 European Music Festival organized by the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart in September 2000, which was recorded and nominated for a Grammy Award®. In 2006, she prepared the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela for the premiere of John Adams’ opera A Flowering Tree during the Festival “New Crowned Hope” in Vienna.

Choral Promoter: She organizes the activities of several Venezuelan National Associations such as Schola Cantorum of Venezuela Foundation, Movimiento Coral Cantemos Foundation, Bach Academy of Venezuela, and the National Academy for Gregorian Chant. Ms. Guinand contributes to the permanent development of centers of choral music for children and youth of low economic resources in Venezuela, through the program Construir Cantando and in other Andean countries through the project Music for Social Action.

Other Positions: She was Vice-President for Latin America of the International Federation for Choral Music (1996-2008), currently Advisor to the Board; member of the Executive Committee of the International Music Council of UNESCO; Professor in the Music Master Degree program of the University Simón Bolívar (Caracas) where she served as Dean for four years.

Awards/Honors: The Kulturpreis of the InterNationes Foundation, 1997; the Robert Edler Preis für Chormusik, 2000; and the Helmuth Rilling Preis, 2009

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