Winner of the 2021 Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, Julio García Vico is Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, where he works closely with conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Gianandrea Noseda, François-Xavier Roth, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Barbara Hannigan and Sir Antonio Pappano. He is also assistant to Maestro Nicola Luisotti at the Teatro Real.

 

In addition to winning the 2021 edition of Donatella Flick — the first in the history of the program to conduct the final concert from memory — Julio is winner of the 2019 German Conductors’ Award, Audience Award of the Oscar und Vera Ritter-Stiftung 2019, and the Prize of the Opernfreunde Bonn 2019. For the latter of these, he conducted Strauss’s Don Juan from memory with the WDR Orchestra in the Cologne Philharmonic Hall, though he received the scores only two days prior; the jury described him as “an extraordinary talent.”

 

2020 saw his professional debut with the Munich Symphony Orchestra, for whom he stepped in at the last minute and was invited back for five more performances that year, with the review, “conducting with his full body, he is a joy to watch.” In addition to his continued work with the LSO and Teatro Real, this season will see his debuts with the Mozarteum Orchestra (Salzburg), the Orquesta Nacional de España, the RTVE Orchestra, the Orchestra of Milan, the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada.

 

Julio has honed his unique and personal technique, which is based on flamenco dance and depth of expression, and is fortified by his strong educational background: he holds three masters and three bachelors degrees, in conducting (Düsseldorf, Prof. Bohn), philosophy (UNED), piano (Munich), repetiteur (K. Jarnot) and viola. As an "academist" at the renowned Ensemble Modern Frankfurt and assistant to early music specialist Sir Elliot Gardiner, his repertoire is broad and includes many opera titles. His more than 10 years of experience as an orchestral musician has led him to festivals such as Beijing Music Festival and Manifeste Paris, as well as to the study of 7 languages, including German, Russian and Japanese. Since 2018, he has been a fellow of the Conductors' Forum of the German Council of Music and in 2019 he was the musical director of the Opera Studio at the Krefeld and Mönchengladbach theaters in Germany.