Born in Buenos Aires Facundo Agudin is a Swiss-Argentine conductor. Following his master’s programme at Universidad Católica Argentina he was trained in medieval music with Pedro Memelsdorff in Bologna and in historical composition at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. His six-year professional experience as a baritone-member of the Swiss Chamber Choir and performing with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra under Claudio Abbado, Valery Gergiev, Armin Jordan, Sir Simon Rattle, Gennadii Roshdestwenskii, Wolfgang Sawallisch and David Zinman and provided major impulses for his further development as a conductor.
In 2007, he was granted First Prize at Colin Metters Seminar (St Petersburg Symphony). Based in Basel, he is founder, artistic and music director of Musique des Lumières. He worked as principal guest conductor at the Armenian National Opera Theatre and was a guest of the Mariinsky Theatre conducting performances of Gounod’s Faust in 2014 and 2015. Together with Daniel Barenboim and Alejo Pérez, Facundo Agudin integrates the short list of nominees to the “Best Argentine Conductor 2015” award.
He has collaborated with orchestras such as Prague Chamber Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Biel Symphony Orchestra, St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, State Opera Orchestra of Armenia, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Kislovodsk Philharmonic, Polish National Opera-Teatr Wielki Poznan, Teatro Colon Philharmonic, National Symphony of Argentina, Teatro Argentino de La Plata, CRT Torino, Sinfonica Aosta, Orchestre symphonique de Besançon, Ensemble Ars Nova Poitiers, Orchestre régional de Cannes, Desaga Chamber Orchestra. On a regular basis he collaborates with Argentina’s National Symphony Orchestra having given acclaimed performances of Stravinsky’s Firebird and Oedipus Rex, Britten’s War Requiem and Berlioz’ Roméo et Juliette.
On the contemporary opera scene, he has premiered Der schwarze Mozart and Romulus der Grosse by Andreas Pflüger. He is currently working on a project named "Dürrenmatt 2021" with the composer Richard Dubugnon and on a new opera by Alfons Zwicker with stage director Nicola Raab and set designer David Haneke.
Together with his ensemble Musique des Lumières, Facundo Agudin recorded for Swiss National Radio SRF, NEOS Music, Oehms Classics, Doron Music. He collaborated with Universal Music Group and Ricordi in order to promote Giovanni Simone Mayr’s operatic work. Since 2017 he is an artist of IBS Classical – Naxos. His recordings include Christian Favre’s Requiem, Robert Schumann’s Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, Giovanni Simone Mayr’s Demetrio, re di Siria as well as his CD-projects "Nuevo Tango Nuevo" and "Cantique" (with music by Bloch, Reger and Pflüger). In 2017, four new CD-releases are to appear at IBS Classical: The Bach-cantatas No. 82 & 170, “Mozart & Dürrenmatt”, “The Cortazar Project”, as well as a revised version of Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, after the study of the manuscript at the Sacher Foundation in Basel.
Facundo Agudin also dedicates himself to nurturing young talents: as a guest-professor he currently runs the Conducting Seminar at Buenos Aires National University for the Arts. He is a member of the “Hebdo / Forum des 100”, hundred personalities who actively contribute to the cultural life of Suisse Romande.
September 2021
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