Roderick Cox

Photo: Susie Knoll.

Winner of the 2018 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award by the U.S Solti Foundation, Berlin-based American conductor, Roderick Cox, has been praised as a conductor who is “paving the way” (NBC News) and recognised as a “trailblazer…a conductor who will be amongst the vanguard” (Minnesota StarTribune).

Forthcoming highlights include debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Barcelona Symphony; while he returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, and Philharmonia Orchestra.

Recent highlights include his debuts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Malmo Symphony, Lahti Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, New World Symphony, and Orchestre de Paris; as well as returns to Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony and Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra.

In the theatre, Cox has recently made important debuts at the Houston Grand Opera (Pêcheurs de Perles) and San Francisco Opera (Il barbiere di Siviglia), as well as recording Jeanine Tesori’s Blue with the Washington National Opera. Last season he returned to the Opéra national de Montpellier for Rigoletto, where he is also developing a relationship on the symphonic platform.

With a passion for education and diversity and inclusion in the arts, Cox started the Roderick Cox Music Initiative (RCMI) in 2019 — a project that provides scholarships for young musicians from historically marginalized communities, allowing them to pay for instruments, music lessons, and summer camps. Cox and his new initiative will be featured in an upcoming documentary called Conducting Life.

Born in Macon, Georgia, Cox attended the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, and then later attended Northwestern University graduating with a master’s degree in 2011. He was awarded the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize from the Aspen Music Festival in 2013 and has held fellowships with the Chicago Sinfonietta as part of their Project Inclusion program and at the Chautauqua Music Festival, where he was a David Effron Conducting Fellow. In 2016, Cox was appointed as Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, under Osmo Vänskä, for three seasons, having previously served as assistant conductor for a year.