Roderick Cox & Leila Josefowicz

The young, Berlin-based American conductor Roderick Cox, winner of the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award 2018, has made his debut with a number of renowned orchestras in recent years, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle and New World Symphony Orchestras, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic. As a guest conductor he has repeatedly led orchestras in Malmö, Kristiansand, Lahti, Washington, Bremen, Dresden, London, Paris, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Detroit, Minnesota and at the Aspen Music Festival.

As an opera conductor, Roderick Cox has led productions at Houston Grand Opera (“Pêcheurs de Perles”) and San Francisco Opera (“Il barbiere di Siviglia”) and recorded Jeanine Tesori’s “Blue” at Washington National Opera. In 2022/2023 he returns to the Opéra national de Montpellier for “Rigoletto”, having previously impressed there with a symphony concert.

Roderick Cox has a sustained commitment to education, diversity and inclusion in the arts. In 2018, he launched the Roderick Cox Music Initiative (RCMI) – a project that provides scholarships to young musicians of colour from underrepresented backgrounds, enabling them to participate in instruments, music lessons and summer camps. Roderick and his new initiative are the subject of the documentary Conducting Life.

Born in Macon, Georgia, Roderick Cox attended the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University and later studied at Northwestern University, where he earned a master’s degree in 2011. He was awarded the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize by the Aspen Music Festival in 2013 and has been a fellow of the Chicago Sinfonietta and the Chautauqua Music Festival. In 2016, Roderick Cox was appointed by Osmo Vänskä as Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra for three seasons, having previously served as Assistant Conductor for one year.