Cosette Justo Valdés
Conductor
Cuban-born conductor Cosette Justo Valdés has emerged as a rising star on the world concert stage. Beloved as a musician who wins the respect of her colleagues and the hearts of audiences, Ms. Valdés currently serves as the Artistic and Music Director of the Vancouver Island Symphony (British Columbia). She has just completed her very successful six year tenure as Resident Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in Canada.
Ms. Valdés is quickly being recognized across the globe as an emerging conductor with extraordinary talents. She will grace the stages of major international orchestras in the coming seasons including - in Europe - the Tonkuenstler Orchestra of Austria, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, the Ulster Orchestra of Belfast, the Orchestra National de Lille, and in the United States - the Minnesota Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Florida Orchestra, the San Antonio Philharmonic and the National Philharmonic. In Canada, she returns to the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and appears for the first time with the London Symphonia (Ontario).
Ms Valdés' 2024-25 concert season witnessed her highly acclaimed debuts with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Victoria Symphony (British Columbia), the Zagreb Philharmonic (Croatia), and the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra in addition to her returns to the National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, the Saskatoon Symphony and her singular farewell programs with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, including a celebration of the distinguished Canadian composer John Estacio.
She collaborated last season with Gershwin scholar and pianist Kevin Cole as well as the famed Cuban pianist Aldo Lopez Gavilán and Canadian piano legend Jon Kimura Parker.
Her debut appearances in the 2023-24 season included none other than the prestigious L'Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, as well as the Pacific Symphony Orchestra (Orange County, California), the Winterthur Symphony (Switzerland), the Utah Symphony, the Brevard Music Festival (North Carolina) and the Sacramento Philharmonic. Past important projects have included a collaboration with Esperanza Spalding and the National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, a celebrated production of Mozart's “Così fan tutte” at the Edmonton Opera which she conducted from the harpsichord, two self-curated concert experiences merging the music of living composers with the words and performance of awarded poets at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the birth of a new opera by Ian Cusson “Indians on Vacation”, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, and the world premiere performances of compositions written by Indigenous Canadian composers from all corners of Canada including cellist and Carnegie Hall artistic partner Cris Derksen, as well as four uniquely staged and theatrical renderings of Handel's Messiah with four different orchestras.
Through her daring, innovative programming with the Vancouver Island Symphony Ms. Valdés has quickly ignited new passion in her audiences, inspiring them to engage personally not only with living, contemporary music but also with rarely heard historical works. As an ongoing part of her artistic agenda in Vancouver Island, Ms. Valdés proudly continues to give a powerful voice to the works of women composers and composers from Native Canadian and American heritage.
Maestro Valdés has also guest conducted in Europe with the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Theater Heidelberg, the National Theater Mannheim and the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra in Germany as well as the Plovdiv Philharmonic of Bulgaria.
In Canada, she has been a regular face with the National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa and has worked with the remarkable musicians of I Musici de Montréal, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra in addition to her frequent appearances with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra and the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra.
Ms Valdés maintains strong ties to her native Cuba, where she is celebrated as the Honorary Director of the prestigious Orquesta Sinfónica de Oriente in Santiago, in Cuba's musical heartland, an orchestra she led as Music Director for nine years early in her professional life.
During that time, seconded by only one administrator and a part-time librarian, she single-handedly managed and directed the 80-musician ensemble, developing an extensive repertoire of classical and contemporary music, jazz and pop, while championing both new and traditional Cuban music.
As a frequent guest conductor of the Orquesta Nacional de Cuba in La Habana, she also premiered many works by Cuba's musical luminaries including Leo Brouwer, Alfredo Diez Nieto, Roberto Valera, and many more.
Ms Valdés' special passion for connecting the jazz universe to the symphonic world has brought her together on the same stage with such extraordinary multidisciplinary artists as Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Kinan Azmeh, Harold López Nussa, Yaroldy Abreu Robles, Mayquel González and the Mambo Kings of New York.
Cosette Justo Valdés holds a bachelor's degree in conducting, as a protégé of Professor Jorge López Marín, from the Instituto Superior de Arte (La Habana, Cuba) and a master's degree in conducting as a prized student of the revered Professor Klaus Arp, from the Staatsliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst (Mannheim, Germany).
In 2022 Ms Valdés was nominated for a Heinz Unger Award 2022 by the Ontario Arts Council of Canada.
