Biography
Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Emmy Award-winning and Grammy-nominated conductor, joins the Shepherd School of Music faculty as Distinguished Resident Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting. Conducting professionally for 35 years, Harth-Bedoya is deeply committed to passing his experience on to the next generation of musicians. Beginning his tenure as Designate in the 2024–25 school year, he will assume full responsibilities overseeing the Shepherd School’s preeminent orchestral programs in the 2025–26 season. Read more about his appointment here.
Harth-Bedoya has amassed considerable experience at the helm of orchestras, including recently completing tenures as Chief Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and as Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, where he now holds the title of Music Director Laureate. He is currently the Mary Franks Thompson Professor of Orchestral Studies at Baylor University, and Music Director of the Baylor Symphony Orchestra through the 2024–25 school year. Previously he has held Music Director positions with the Auckland Philharmonia in New Zealand and the Eugene Symphony in Oregon, the Lima Philharmonic Orchestra in Peru, and the New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall. He also held the Director of Orchestral Studies position at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Devoted to sharing his expertise with rising young musicians, he has also established The Conducting Institute to teach the fundamentals of conducting to students ages high school and up, of all levels, through intensive summer and winter programs, workshops, courses, and seminars.
Harth-Bedoya guest conducts with orchestras around the world. In the United States, he has conducted the Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and St. Louis Symphony, among others. He is also frequently a guest at summer festivals such as Aspen Music Festival, Grand Teton Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Grant Park Festival, Hollywood Bowl, and the New Zealand Festival. Following his exceptional tenure as Associate Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic during the early years of his career, Harth-Bedoya’s “special chemistry” (LA Times) with the orchestra remains strong and he often returns as a guest conductor.
Worldwide he is a frequent guest of the Helsinki Philharmonic, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, National Orchestra of Spain, New Zealand Symphony, and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, and has appeared with the Melbourne Symphony, London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Bilbao Symphony and Barcelona Orchestras, among others. In the summer of 2016, Harth-Bedoya made his Japanese debut conducting both the NHK Symphony and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestras.
Equally at home in opera, Harth-Bedoya has conducted both traditional and premiere productions. He led a new production of La bohème at English National Opera directed by Jonathan Miller, as well as productions with the Bremen Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Cincinnati Opera, and Minnesota Opera. At the Santa Fe Opera, he led two world premiere productions of Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar in 2005 and Jennifer Higdon’s Cold Mountain in 2015. The recording of Cold Mountain at the Santa Fe Opera was nominated for a Grammy Award. He also conducted the world premiere of Stephen Paulus’ Heloise and Abelard with the Juilliard Opera Center in 2002. He makes his Metropolitan Opera debut this fall conducting Oswaldo Golijov's Ainadamar.
With a passionate devotion to unearthing new South American repertoire, Miguel Harth-Bedoya is the founder and Artistic Director of Caminos del Inka, a non-profit organization dedicated to researching, performing, and preserving the rich musical legacy of South America. Among its varied activities, Caminos del Inka champions South American composers, produces lectures, chamber music concerts, CD and video recordings, and supports The Conducting Institute. In addition, Harth-Bedoya’s multimedia project: Caminos del Inka, a musical journey has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Residentie Orkest and MDR Sinfonie Leipzig.
Harth-Bedoya’s impressive discography includes albums on Harmonia Mundi, Deutsche Gramophone, Decca, FWSOLive, LAWO, Naxos, and MSR Classics. The 2018 release Mussorgsky/Gorchakov: Pictures at an Exhibition/Prokofiev: Cinderella (FWSOLive) received accolades from critics, with Nick Bernard of MusicWeb-International, writing: “Throughout, music director/conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya is a sensitive and impressive guide. He draws from the Fort Worth musicians playing of real character and considerable virtuosity.” In Gramophone, Guy Rickards commented,"...Miguel Harth-Bedoya has a knack for getting the most out of players in front of him; and, as it is with the Mussorgsky; so it proves with the substantial 30-minute selection of extracts from Prokofiev's Cinderella...”
For the prestigious Harmonia Mundi label, Harth-Bedoya has made six acclaimed recordings: Music of Lutoslawski and Brahms (arr Schoenberg); orchestral works by Jimmy Lopez; New South American Discoveries; the complete Prokofiev Piano Concertos with Cliburn winner Vadym Kholodenko, and piano concertos by Grieg and Saint-Saëns which was awarded “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone.
Other recordings include Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago with the Chicago Symphony and Yo-Yo Ma, which received two Grammy nominations, music by Osvaldo Golijov with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon and pianists Katia and Marielle Labeque on Deutsche Grammophon, and Sentimiento Latino with Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flores on Decca. For Naxos, Harth-Bedoya recorded an album devoted to music by Peruvian composer Celso Garrido-Lecca.
Recently, on MSR Classics label he recorded an album of orchestral music by Jimmy López Bellido performed by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and in the Norwegian label, LAWO Classics, released a disc devoted to works by Alberto Ginastera which he recorded with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra (KORK).
Born and raised in Peru, Harth-Bedoya received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, both under the guidance of Otto-Werner Mueller. He also studied with Seiji Ozawa and Gustav Meier at Tanglewood, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Texas Christian University.
Harth-Bedoya is an environmental advocate who is committed to a zero-waste lifestyle. In 2016 he co-founded Cowboy Compost, a business geared to achieve food waste reduction. He is married to Dr. Maritza Cáceres, a choral conductor, and they have three children, Elena, Emilio, and Elisa.
