Alejo Pérez

It would be wonderful to attend the performance twice and the second time around only look with one’s ears. The music under the Argentine conductor Alejo Pérez [...] was performed with intensity of the highest order. Jürgen Kesting, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

As a conductor, Alejo Pérez possesses an inherent stylistic awareness and the ability to bring every detail of the most complex score to life. This has consistently secured him a firm place on the international opera and concert scene. 

In recent years, the conductor has appeared to great acclaim at the Salzburg Festival, at the Wiener Staatsoper, the Semperoper Dresden, and at Teatro Colón. His long-standing artistic ties to the prestigious opera house and concert hall in his hometown of Buenos Aires will culminate in 2026 with his appointment as the new chief conductor of the Orquesta Estable del Teatro Cólon. In May 2026, he will make his entrance there with Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, followed by new productions of Otello and Die Walküre.

Alejo Pérez has been a guest with numerous renowned orchestras, such as Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Ensemble Intercontemporain.

In his role as music director of the Flemish Opera, Alejo Pérez has been forming the sonic identity of the Flemish Opera from 2019 to 2025 with titles such as Pelléas et Mélisande, Lohengrin, Don Carlos, Tristan und Isolde and La Clemenza di Tito, and most recently impressed the international critics with his outstanding performances of Salome (directed by Ersan Mondtag) and Wozzeck (Johan Simons). He bid farewell to the company in October 2025 with Parsifal (Susanne Kennedy) and Mahler's Song of the Earth. The new season also features debuts at the Gothenburg Opera with a new production of Jenufa (directed by Nicola Raab) and with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra at the Teatro Arriaga in a production of Shostakovich's 14th Symphony directed by Calixto Bieito with Anette Dasch and Leigh Melrose. At the Grand Théâtre de Genève, he has already collaborated with Calixto Bieito on the trilogy of War and Peace, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Khovanshchina. 

In addition, engagements have taken him to the Stuttgart Opera (Cherubini’s Medea, The Love for Three Oranges, Werther); Opéra de Lyon (Pelléas et Mélisande, The Stigmatized, GerMANIA, From the House of the Dead), the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (La Cenerentola, The Nose, Lulu, The Fiery Angel), Tokyo Nikikai Opera (Frau ohne Schatten, Gogo no eiko, Der Freischütz) to the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Tokyo New National Theatre, Opéra de Bastille, the Cologne, Frankfurt, and Leipzig Operas, Norwegian National Opera, Teatr Wielki Warsaw, La Monnaie de Munt, and Teatro Municipal de Santiago. 

Between 2009 and 2012 Alejo Pérez served as music director of the Teatro Argentino de La Plata, to which he brought a new lease of life with internationally acclaimed performances. From 2010, he was one of the main conductors at the Teatro Real Madrid in the era of Gerard Mortier, closely working with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid for concerts and celebrated productions of Rienzi, Don Giovanni, Death in Venice, Golijov’s Ainadamar, and Rihm’s Die Eroberung von Mexico. 

The polyglot Argentinian studied both composition and conducting in addition to piano in his native Buenos Aires, and later in Karlsruhe with Peter Eötvös. Formative periods at the start of his conducting career included assisting Peter Eötvös, Michael Gielen, as well as Christoph von Dohnányi at the NDR Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, Alejo Pérez was awarded the Konex Platinum Award for his artistic achievements – one of the highest honours in his home country Argentina. 

2025/26 season

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