Former Solti apprentice Lina González-Granados returns as guest conductor

When Lina González-Granados returns to Symphony Center to lead a Civic Orchestra of Chicago concert and a quartet of school and family performances with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in February, the up-and-coming, Colombian-American conductor will be in very familiar territory.

After winning the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association’s International Sir Georg Solti Conducting Competition in 2019, González-Granados was named the ensemble’s fourth Solti Conducting Apprentice. She served as assistant to then-Zell Music Director Riccardo Muti from February 2020 through June 2023. “For me, it was an unforgettable experience in every way possible,” she said.

In addition to study and observation, the apprenticeship incorporated education and community engagement activities in conjunction with the CSO’s Negaunee Music Institute, including leading the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in a concert for the Chicago Public Schools at Kenwood Academy High School.

What she did not count on — but was ready for nonetheless — was being asked to step in twice in 2022 for Muti when he contracted COVID-19. The second time came in June when she led a set of three concerts that featured famed violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, doing it with highly limited rehearsal and only same-day notice.

According to music critic Lawrence B. Johnson, who writes for Chicago on the Aisle, her last-minute fill-in was a “stunning success.” “González-Granados offered a thoughtful Brahms First: fundamentally lyrical, clearly structured, the dramatic apexes specifically set off,” he wrote of her take on the program’s culminating Brahms’ First Symphony. “The conductor was always on the front edge of the music, always ready with the ensuing inflection. This was an engaged, smart, comprehensive interpretation.”

Overall, these experiences allowed her to build a close relationship with the orchestra members and staff. “That’s why, when I come back, it’s going to feel a little bit like I never left, because it hasn’t been much time,” she said.

Midway through her tenure in Chicago, the Los Angeles Opera appointed González-Granados as resident conductor, a position that runs through 2025. She made her debut with the company in September 2022, leading Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.

“Typically, when the curtain falls on a performance of Lucia, audiences reserve their most robust applause for the soprano, who, as Lucia, must deliver wildly complex strings of sky-high notes, all while portraying a murderous, increasingly mad heroine. On opening night, talented soprano Amanda Woodbury got her due, but the audience was equally (if not slightly more) generous with its praise for González-Granados,” wrote Catherine Womack in the Los Angeles Times.

The conductor had kind words for James Conlon, who has been the company’s music director since 2006. “He’s not per se my boss, but he is the overall leader musically,” she said. “He has been an extremely valuable resource. For my first mainstage production, he helped me a lot.” In addition to advice, he made sure that she was properly connected to the opera’s music library and other departments. “He wanted me to be very ingrained in the house, and I thank him for that.”

Add Conlon to the long and impressive list of conducting mentors who have had an important impact on her career. Besides Muti, it includes Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Bernard Haitink, Bramwell Tovey and Marin Alsop.

In addition to continuing her work at the Los Angeles Opera, including helming the company’s production of Gabriela Lena Frank’s recent opera, El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), González-Granados’ 2023-24 schedule includes conducting debuts with an array of notable ensembles. Among them is the Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, I Musici de Montréal, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, New World Symphony and San Antonio Philharmonic.

In short, she is a conductor very much on the way up.

González-Granados grew up in Cali, Colombia, known as the salsa capital, and she began piano lessons as a child. But she is an extrovert, and she found the hours of practice and playing to be too solitary. “I want to connect with people,” she said. “That’s what got me into conducting.” This feeling became even stronger in college in Bogotá when she accompanied some choirs and instrumental ensembles and relished the camaraderie, something she couldn’t get with the piano alone. “I didn’t feel complete,” she said. “I didn’t envision myself having a solo career after tasting the good things about being around people in the way that a conductor is.”

She switched her major to conducting, but soon realized that there was little future for her in that field in Colombia, where the number of female conductors was “zero to none.” So, González-Granados moved to the United States, as she put it, “full of dreams and full of intentions to follow this career.”

After a year in New York, she earned a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and a doctorate in conducting from Boston University. Three years ago, she became a U.S. citizen. “I feel like this country has given me such great opportunities,” she said. “I came here with a lot of dreams, and it has fulfilled its promise to open the doors for me. So, I’m nothing but grateful in this country.”

After two “big milestones” in her life in recent years, landing the job at the Los Angeles Opera and recently having a baby, she is ready to think about setting down roots as a music director of an orchestra. But she wants to make sure it’s the right job. “I don’t have such a rush to get into a relationship, either a music directorship or anything else, if it is not a good fit,” she said, “but I’m looking forward to the moment that it happens.”

For now, though, she is happy at the Los Angeles Opera and eager to take on guest-conducting engagements like the upcoming concerts at Symphony Center. On Feb. 12, she will lead the Civic Orchestra of Chicago in Mason Bates’ Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, an 11-movement work inspired by mythical creatures. Also on the program will be Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus, with its score featuring bird calls recorded in Finland, and Viet Cuong’s Vital Sines, which showcases Chicago-based sextet Eighth Blackbird.

On Feb. 16-17, as part of the CSO for Kids series, González-Granados will conduct four school and family matinee concerts ideal for children ages 5-12. Anchoring the program will be Camille Saint-Saëns’ beloved The Carnival of the Animals, with Charlotte Blake Alston providing narration.

The rest of the program will consist of Starburst by the CSO’s Mead Composer-in-Residence, Jessie Montgomery, and William Grant Still’s Mother and Child, a popular 1943 work by the noted 20th-century American composer. “I hope people like the program,” the conductor said. “I think it has a very good flow with the two pieces for string orchestra and then Carnival of the Animals.”