Luis Toro Araya
conductor
About this Artist
“Music is all about emotions,” says conductor Luis Toro Araya. He recently impressed at the Salzburg Festival, leading the Camerata Salzburg in a fresh and inspiring performance of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony. A native of Chile, he transmits a deep understanding of music to the audience by engaging with musicians in a personal, energizing way. By maintaining a focus on high standards in group performance, he brings a wide palette of subtle yet powerful colors to the concert platform.
Luis Toro Araya was a finalist for the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award 2021, conducting the Camerata Salzburg in the 100th Salzburg Festival. He is also one of the designated winners of the International Conducting Competition Rotterdam (ICCR). In the 2018/19 season, he made his debut in his home country with the Orquesta Clásica Usach and the Orquesta Sinfónica Universidad de La Serena, where he will return in the next season. Further, he has worked with orchestras such as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, Berner Symphonieorchester, Olten Filarmoni of Izmir, and Musikkollegium Winterthur.
Born in 1995 in San Vicente de Tagua Tagua, Chile, Araya studied violin at the Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Chile and at the Escuela Moderna Música with Alberto Dourthé Castrillón. He was part of the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile from 2014 until 2017. In 2015, he began studies with conductors such as Jorge Rotter, Leonid Grin, Garrett Keast, and Helmuth Reichel Silva, with whom he regularly collaborates as an assistant in projects in Chile and Europe.
In masterclasses, he has worked with conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Paavo Järvi, James Lowe, and Larry Rachleff. Araya studied orchestral conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar with Nicolás Pasquet and at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Zurich with Johannes Schlaefli.