Charles Olivieri-Munroe is from the 2015/16 season the newly appointed Artistic Director & Principal Conductor of the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra. He is concurrently Chief Conductor with Philharmonie Sudwestfalen since 2011.  He holds the position of Honourary Chief Conductor with the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he has had a long and successful relationship since 1997. Since 2005 he has been Resident Conductor with the Texas Round Top Festival Institute.

 

Previously Olivieri-Munroe has held the position of Principal Conductor of the Colorado ‘Crested Butte’ Festival (2008), Artistic Director of the Inter-Regionales Symfonie Orchester in Germany (2008), Chief Conductor of the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava (2001-2004), and Associate Conductor with the Brno Philharmonic (1995-97) and Karlsbad Symphony Orchestra (1993-95).

 

Charles Olivieri-Munroe's hold on public imagination stems from a combination of talent and charisma.  He is increasingly recognized in the international press for his innovative programming, interpretation of Slavic repertoire and his passion for purity of orchestral sound.  From his home in Prague his career takes him across five continents, appearing with many of the world’s finest orchestras which has included the Israel Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Deutches Symphonie-Orchester, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Munich Symphony Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony, Budapest Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Royal Brussels Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Bangkok Symphony Orchestra and others. He has also appeared in New York, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Athens, Istanbul, Lisbon, Tokyo, Seoul and Santiago. 

 

In the opera house, Charles Olivieri-Munroe made his debut conducting Verdi’s Falstaff at the Berlin Komische Oper in 2001. He led Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Milan, Aida at the Lago di Como Festival and also conducted at Il Teatro Fenice in Venice.  He has a worked with the Netherlands National Ballet, at the Prague National Opera and the Prague State Opera,. He as music director at the Warsaw Chamber Opera in their 50th anniversary in 2012 conducting Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress. In February 2014 he led the Dvorak National Theater in a critically acclaimed new production of Schumann’s Genoveva. 

 

Born in Malta, Charles Olivieri-Munroe grew up in Canada where he studied the piano with the eminent pedagogue, Boris Berlin, at the Royal Conservatory of Music and at the University of Toronto.  Following his graduation in 1992 he won three Ontario scholarships to study with Otakar Trhlik at the Janacek Academy of Music in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He was also a student of Jiri Belohlavek and spent two summers (1995/96) at L’Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena studying with Ilja Musin and Yuri Temirkanov and Myung Whun Chung. In 1997 Charles Olivieri-Munroe was a recipient of the $20,000 career grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. His international career was launched by a series of triumphs in international competitions culminating with him winning First Prize in the 2000 ‘Prague Spring International Music Festival’ Conducting Competition in which he also won the prizes offered by Supraphon Records, City of Prague and by Czech Radio. Charles Olivieri-Munroe is the winner of the 2013 Brand Personality Award by the Asia Pacific Brand Foundation for his achievements in conducting and music.  Previous laureates have included Hillary Clinton, Steve Jobs, Michael Schumacher and Nelson Mandela and Mark Zuckerberg. 

 

Charles Olivieri-Munroe’s recordings for SONY, RCA Red Seal, NAXOS, SMS Classical, and Naïve Records can be heard on many of the major international classical radio stations. 

 

June 2015