Currently he is Music Director of both the New Mexico Symphony and the Music in the Mountains Festival in Colorado as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Puerto Rico Symphony.
Figueroa and his wife, violinist Valerie Turner, are the Founders and Artistic Directors of the acclaimed Festival de Musica Rondena chamber series in Albuquerque.
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Figueroa and Turner will be performing together with Willy Sucre & Friends on April 17, 2011. |
Renowned violinist, Guillermo Figueroa is one of the most versatile musicians of his generation. As a Founding Member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, he has been concertmaster and soloist in performances throughout the United States, Europe and Asia and made over fifty recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. He was concertmaster of the New York City Ballet, a member of the Emerson String Quartet and is a regular performer at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music in the Vineyards in California, and Music from Angel Fire. As part of Puerto Rico's most distinguished musical family, he has appeared with the Figueroa Chamber Ensemble at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Kennedy Center.
Figueroa has given the world premieres of four violin concertos written for him: in 1995 the Concertino by Mario Davidovsky, at Carnegie Hall with Orpheus; in 2007 the Double Concerto by Harold Farberman, with the American Symphony at Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center; in 2008 the Violin Concerto by Miguel del Aguila, commissioned by Figueroa and the NMSO and in 2009 Insula, Suite Concertante, by Ernesto Cordero with the Solisti di Zagreb in Zagreb. He has recorded the Three Violin Sonatas by Bartok for the Eroica Classical label, with pianist Robert Koenig, and an album of virtuoso violin music by for the NMSO label, with pianist Ivonne Figueroa.
He studied at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico with his father and uncle. At the Juilliard School his teachers were Oscar Shumsky and Felix Galimir. His conducing studies were with Harold Farberman in New York.