Lawrence Foster

Lawrence Foster is an American conductor of Romanian ancestry. He is currently the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Foster became the conductor of the San Francisco Ballet at the age of 18, and served as Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. He has held music directorships with the Houston Symphony, the Ojai Music Festival, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya in Spain.
In 1990, Foster was appointed Music Director of the Aspen Music Festival and School.
From 2002 to 2013, Foster was the Music Director of the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, Portugal. He also served as Music Director of the Orchestre National de Montpellier and the Opéra National de Montpellier from 2009 to 2012. In February 2012, Foster was announced as the next music director of l'Opéra de Marseille and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille. As of 2019 Foster is the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.