March 10, 2026
By Ed Masley
The Phoenix Symphony has emerged from an intensive three-year search for the next Virginia G. Piper Music Director with a candidate symphony President and CEO Peter Kjome calls “a conductor of remarkable musical insight and artistic leadership.”
Internationally acclaimed Chilean-Italian conductor Paolo Bortolameolli will serve as Music Director Designate during the 2026–27 season, opening the season and leading five programs.
He’s set to become the Virginia G. Piper Music Director beginning with the 2027–28 season, succeeding Tito Munoz as the 12th Music Director in the orchestra’s nearly 80-year history.
Recognized as one of the leading conductors in Latin America, Bortolameolli was born in Viña del Mar, Chile, and grew up surrounded by music, attending concerts, opera and ballet with his father from a very young age.
How a ‘singular’ performance made him want to conduct at 7
It was after one particular performance — “a very singular and magic Beethoven 5” — that Bortolameolli decided he wanted to be a conductor.
He was 7 at the time.
“Beethoven 5 has this amazing moment, which is the transition between the third movement into the fourth movement after this building up that leads to the open of the C major fantastic monumental triumph,” he says.
“So I started to cry there in that moment, and my dad was so moved that he wanted to take me to the conductor’s dressing room to tell him what happened.”
When Bortolameolli saw the conductor, he began to cry again.
“The conductor asked my dad what happened,” he says.
“My dad explained it to him, and then the conductor hugged me and told me, ‘This is exactly why we do what we do.’ So after that moment, I said to everybody, ‘OK, this is what I want to do my whole life. I want to become this guy that he’s surrounded by musicians and making this miracle happen.’”
Bortolameolli took his first step toward achieving that goal by studying piano at 7, “but always with this goal that I wanted to become a conductor,” he says.
He began to follow the Filarmónica de Santiago, learning the repertoire by going to rehearsals and performances, falling in love with music.”
Bortolameolli conducted his first concert at 14
At 14, he had his first conductor teacher.
“It was my first time that I stood up in front of an orchestra for kind of like a children’s concert,” he says. “And after I conducted the last portion of the William Tell Overture, I was completely decided. ‘OK, this is it. I cannot not do this.’”
He went on to earn a conducting diploma from the Universidad de Chile in 2011, a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the Yale School of Music in 2013 and a Graduate Performance Diploma from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar, in 2015.
“I started conducting professionally in 2013, beginning in Chile, then South America,” Bortolameolli says.
“Then it opened widely. Now here I am in Brussels, going to Asia, to the States, to Latin America a lot. I’m the music director in the Opera House in Santiago, where is the same orchestra that opened my soul to classical music, the Filarmonica de Santiago. And now I am incredibly happy and excited for this new chapter with the Phoenix Symphony.”
Bortolameolli also holds an ongoing relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was mentored closely by Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel and held an Associate Conductor title through 2023.
‘One of the most important decisions an orchestra can make’
Choosing a music director is “one of the most important decisions an orchestra can make,” Kjome says. “It’s important not only for the symphony but also our community. And this is something that’s going to help us to enrich lives for many, many years to come.”
The Symphony started the search with a list of about 100 candidates, inviting 13 candidates to serve as guest conductors as part of an interview process that began in early 2023 when Munoz announced bring his tenure to an end after a decade with the orchestra, agreeing to stay through the conclusion of the 2023-24 season.
Bortolameolli served as guest conductor twice, leading the orchestra in Stravinsky’s Firebird in October 2024 and opening the 2025-26 season with Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony No. 9.
“The very first time, as a guest conductor, I remember that feeling of, ‘Oh, this is working so nicely, the chemistry with the orchestra, with the musicians, the way we connected to get musical results,” the conductor recalls.
“And the same click happened with the audience, such an enthusiastic crowd that they love and they’re proud of their symphony orchestra.”
‘We had a sense that Paolo might be our next artistic leader’
Kjome says he had a good feeling about Bortolameolli from the first of those two visits.
“From the first time that Paolo was with us in Phoenix, leading our orchestra in exceptional concerts on the stage at Symphony Hall but also getting to know our community, we had a sense that Paolo might be our next artistic leader,” Kjome says.
“One of the things that’s so powerful about Paolo and what he’s like as an artist, what he’s like as a person, as a leader, is that he’s someone, in a very powerful way, who helps to bring people together.”
The Symphony’s Vice President of Artistic Chris Powell says he felt “pretty early on” that Bortolameolli could be the one.
“You can tell from the musicians’ feedback No. 1,” he says.
“I’ve never seen anything quite so positive. Ever. When he was first here, that first season, during his first concert, they were on a different level. It was very clear. We had a lot of really wonderful conductors come through, but it was very clear who the musicians were really most excited about. And those conductors ended up in the final round. Paolo was just exquisite.”
‘Paolo is the right leader at the right time for Phoenix Symphony’
The Symphony music director search committee has nine members: five musicians, three board members and one staff member. They also surveyed the musicians after each conductor visit.
“The surveys helped to ensure that the voice of our musicians has been integral to the process from the very beginning,” Kjome says.
“And we have heard from our musicians about Paolo’s musicianship. We’ve heard about his positive influence on the culture of our organization. And we’ve heard from our musicians that his vision is something that excites them and something that really makes them feel so strongly about the fact that Paolo is the right leader at the right time for the Phoenix Symphony.”
Violinist Christopher McKay, who joined the orchestra in 2008, was one of five musicians on the search committee.
“I really enjoyed meeting the candidates,” he says. “The committee would have coffee with them on a Saturday morning, get to know them personally, hear their ideas about music and how to relate it to people. And then the orchestra got to experience just what it’s like to rehearse with this person, to perform concerts with this person.”
Asked what he was looking for in a candidate, McKay says “everything.”
And Bortolameolli ticked all those boxes.
“We were looking for someone who could bring a really high artistic level to the conducting and being able to inspire the musicians on stage to be able to perform at our best for the people in the audience,” he says. “So a really great musician, that’s kind of the first thing.”
McKay was also looking for a great communicator.
“If you have a great communicator on the podium, you can really make great music together,” he says.
“But that communication is also super-important when the music director needs to work with development and fundraising, being able to go out and comfortably talk to donors because we don’t receive any government funding from the city, the state, or the federal government, so we have to go to our community to ask for donations. So someone who can be able to inspire our donors and be able to connect with them in a way that inspires them.”
McKay says Bortolameolli may have been the second candidate they’d seen.
“And right away, I thought he might be the guy who has the whole package. The first concert went very well. And then the next morning, that Saturday morning, the committee had coffee with him. And it’s the things that he said to us about how he feels about music and how he wants to bring music to people, that really clinched it for me.”
It wasn’t just the members of the search committee who felt they had a vested interest in the Symphony’s decision.
As the chair of that committee, Mo Stein, recalls the audience reaction to their favorite guest conductors, “People would come up to me, literally in the halls, walking out, and say, ‘Hire this person.’ ‘Hire this person.’ And it would be for, not just one, but for a couple of them. So there’s no shortage of opinions, which was kind of fun. But we knew months ago that we had a solution that we felt really good about it.”
Of the 13 original guest conductors, three were brought back for a second look. Two of them were visited by the search committee to see them in another venue with another orchestra.
Bortolameolli has ‘incredible connectivity’ on and off the podium
Bortolameolli was always a leading contender.
“First of all was just this incredible connectivity that was evident to me both on and off the podium,” Stein says.
“On the podium, he had the musician’s attention. It was obvious to me, as a layman just watching and hearing the musician’s reaction. So that excitement was there. And then off the podium, it was really clear that he would care about this community. He asked the right questions. He made a point to connect with Valerie, our Director of Education and Engagement, and said, ‘What can I do while I’m here?’ That’s a pretty remarkable feat.”
Stein also got the impression that Bortolameolli was sincerely interested in the community.
“It felt to me that his connection to our culture was honest and legitimate, that he felt like we do, that there’s magic happening here in our performance and in our out-of-campus work with schools and kids and hospitals and hospice and shelter, all those things that we’re doing, that it’s not just window dressing. It’s real and it’s making a difference.”
Another thing that gave Bortolameolli an edge with Stein is that he wasn’t shy about how much he wanted this position.
“When Paolo was here for his second week with the orchestra, he made it clear that he wanted the job,” Stein says. “And I wasn’t prepared for that, but when it was clear that he was asking us to come back and be part of this team, that was really, really important to me. Asking for that opportunity meant something to me.”
Bortolameolli feels the Phoenix Symphony can ‘transform’ lives
For Bortolameolli, it all goes back to that emotional connection to classical music he felt as a child.
“It’s such a pivotal moment in my whole life that in a way it always brings me back to that feeling that a concert can be a transforming life experience,” he says.
“You can go and then you go back to your home a completely different human being. Somehow that feeling and that perspective, it’s something that I have been looking for always. And with the Phoenix Symphony, I felt that immediately. It wasn’t just an artistic click, which obviously is very important, but also a way to communicate a deeper message and hopefully transform lives to make a concert experience something that is beyond the entertainment.”
It’s Bortolameolli’s hope that he can bring energy, enthusiasm and a “fresh perspective” to his new role at the Phoenix Symphony.
“I always think that the conductor position is adding something to what is already happening,” he says. “Because, as I always say to my conductor fellow students, we don’t produce any sound. So our whole magic or goal is to make them sound the best they can because you are so convinced of what you are bringing to them that everybody is teaming up for the same goal.”
To Bortolameolli, it’s important that those shared goals go “beyond the walls of music,” as he puts it.
“I think it’s really relevant in this moment to have the perspective that we are not only communicating sounds,” he says.
“We are also communicating a narrative. That is why, for me, the educational part of it, or how we connect with the community through our message, is so vital … to craft a very conscious and consequent message about what is our role in this world. And from that point of view, I think programming, being reachable and close to the audiences, breaking the wall of how you deliver a message that it doesn’t feel that you’re trying to educate, but you are actually trying to connect from your enthusiasm with them, is vital.”
To Kjome, having Bortolameolli join the team as the next Virginia G. Piper Music Director is “an extraordinary moment of opportunity and possibility for the Phoenix Symphony” on several levels.
“Paolo is someone who has this brilliant vision, but he also is someone who wants to help draw out the best of others, whether it’s a musician who’s playing on the stage of Symphony Hall to help lift them up and be at their best, or whether it’s in all these conversations about where we’re headed as an organization,” Kjome says. “That is already very powerful for us and will continue to be not only for the Symphony, but also for our community.”
As vice president of artistic at the Phoenix Symphony, Chris Powell is “absolutely thrilled” with the decision.
“The musicians said in our final meeting, as we were discussing all the finalists, something that I found very important. And that was, we can do a great job programming really terrific concerts throughout the season, but what a music director brings is the identity of this orchestra. So that to me is an incredibly exciting prospect for these musicians to be able to find their real authentic voice with their leader.”
