The 2012.13 season is Edo de Waart’s fourth as the sixth music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He is also chief conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, artistic partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.

Guest conducting highlights include performances with the San Francisco Symphony, NHK Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Washington’s National Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. As an opera conductor, Mr. de Waart has conducted at Nikikai Opera, Geneva Opera, Opera de Bastille, Santa Fe Opera and The Metropolitan Opera. Semi-staged and concert opera performances include Der Rosenkavalier (The Metropolitan Opera), Bluebeard's Castle (Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra) and The Rake’s Progress (Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra). He regularly conducts an opera with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic as part of the Concertgebouw’s Zaterdag Matinee series.

Edo de Waart’s extensive catalogue encompasses releases for Philips, Virgin, EMI, Telarc and RCA. With the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, he has recorded all the orchestral works of Rachmaninoff, the overtures of Wagner for Octavia/Exton and, most recently, a Wagner series for Challenge Classics.

Born in Holland, he studied oboe, piano and conducting at the Music Lyceum in Amsterdam and upon graduating took up the position of associate principal oboe of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Two years later, at the age of 23, he won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York which resulted in his appointment as assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic. On his return to Holland, he was appointed assistant conductor to Bernard Haitink at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 1967, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra appointed him guest conductor and, six years later, chief conductor and artistic director. Since then, Edo de Waart has also been music director of the San Francisco Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra, chief conductor and artistic director of the Sydney Symphony and chief conductor of De Nederlandse Opera. In December 2004, he was made a Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion, and in 2005, he was appointed an Honorary Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

Edo de Waart lives in Antwerp, Belgium, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife, Rebecca, and their two children.