Introducing
Andrew Mogrelia, Conductor
Principal Guest Conductor, Queensland Ballet
Music Director San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra
Former Music Director and Principal Conductor, San Francisco Ballet
Andrew is music director of the conservatory orchestra at the esteemed San Francisco Conservatory of Music and immediate past music director and principal conductor of the San Francisco Ballet. He has worked in some of the world’s top houses, and conducted many of Europe’s leading orchestras.
Andrew's discography, encompassing more than 20 years of recording, is extensive and impressive by any calculation.
"Mogrelia ... was always there with [violin soloist Douglas] Kwan, pacing the flow to support both the expressiveness of the melodic passages and the intricacies of the virtuoso embellishments, all the while maintaining a sure balance among the vast diversity of Bartók’s instrumental voices.
"...the ensemble was just as committed to the rest of the program. The Rossini overture clicked along with all of that uncanny precision for which the composer is so well known. The same can be said of his reputation for the extended crescendo, which Mogrelia handled so masterfully that it was as much a thing of beauty as a technical feat. I was particularly struck by the way in which all of the violins began their pianissimo bowing close to the bridge and gradually moved the bow down to where the string had more room to vibrate. The result was a crescendo based as much on the emergence of a richer blend of upper harmonics as on increased amplitude. It is technical details like these that escalate Rossini from routine entertainment to an absorbing listening experience.
"The Beethoven symphony received a robust account... If Rossini’s rhetoric relied on the impact of that extended crescendo, Mogrelia’s rhetorical stance towards Beethoven involved subtle shaping of dynamic levels on a note-by-note basis, allowing each phrase to breathe with its own organic ... qualities. This approach also provided just the right platform to display Beethoven’s sense of wit, exercised throughout the symphony but most prominent in the Adagio that begins the final movement with its hesitant series of steps up the C major scale."
Stephen Smoliar, SF Classical Music Examiner, 20 Sep 2011 Full Review
andrew mogrelia
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