Biography

Main Conductor of the Granada Youth Symphony Orchestra, Musical Director of the Ceuta International Symphony Orchestra 2020, Assistant Conductor of the Extremadura Youth Orchestra for the 2018/21 seasons and Artistic Conductor of European Medical Students' Orchestra and Choir 2019, EDMON LEVON (Sofia, 1988) is an orchestral conducting postgraduate from the renowned Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (supported by the Pidem Fund) and former student of the prestigious Dutch National Master’s in Orchestral Conducting (supported by the Kersjes Fonds). He was one of the 20 finalists at the "Antal Doráti" International Conducting Competition 2018 and recently conducted the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in their 10th and last International Conducting Masterclass with David Zinman. He stands out for his sharp hearing and thorough search of orchestral colours, balances and musical phrasings as well as for his efficient rehearsal technique thanks to his extensive orchestral experience as a professional violinist.
 
In different contexts, he has conducted the Gstaad Menuhin Festival Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic, The Hague Resident Orchestra, South Netherlands Philharmonic, National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands, BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, Argovia Philharmonic, Granada City Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic and Ruse Philharmonic. He recently did his successful debut in Germany in a subscription concert with the Jenaer Philharmonie, thanks to which he has been reinvited to Germany to conduct the Göttinger Symphinie Orchester in the 2019/20 season. As an assistant conductor, Edmon has worked at the BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Berlin Radio Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with conductors Juanjo Mena, Pablo González, Antony Hermus and John Storgårds, among others.

Edmon was selected to participate in masterclasses with David Zinman, Daniele Gatti, Juanjo Mena, Manfred Honeck, Vasily Petrenko, Sir Mark Elder and Ivor Bolton. His conducting mentors have been Jac van Steen, Ed Spanjaard and Kenneth Montgomery in the Netherlands, and Clark Rundell and Mark Heron in the United Kingdom.

As the main conductor of the Northern Lusofonia Orchestra in 2015-2017, Edmon conducted numerous UK premières by Spanish and Portuguese composers such as Òscar Colomina, Luís de Freitas Branco, Federico de Freitas, Victorino D’Almeida, Eurico Carrapatoso and Joly Bragas Santos. Moved by his Bulgarian heritage, he has been involved in a research project aiming to locate and bring to Western audiences masterpieces and seemingly lost works by Bulgarian composers such as Petko Staynov, Pancho Vladigerov, Dimitar Nenov, Veselin Stoyanov and Henri Lazarof.

As a violinist, he graduated at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Granada obtaining the Special Award for Excellence in Academic Performance and later he completed a postgraduate at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar under Prof. Marius Sima. Co-author of two books of violin scales for students in all levels, in 2009 he became the youngest violinist ever to win the auditions for a permanent position at the Granada City Orchestra, orchestra with which he has performed as a soloist on three occasions.

When not on stage, his other passions are the violin teaching, reading, hiking and piloting light aircraft.