Eduardo Chibás

Eduardo Chibás was born in Havana, Cuba. He later moved to New York, where he graduated from Columbia University with a Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics and Operations Research. In 1971 he moved to Caracas to work in marketing at Procter & Gamble and later in Macosarto. He then founded AW Publicidad, today AW Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, one of the leading advertising agencies in the country, and of which Chibás is currently its President.

Eduardo Chibás is indeed proud of being a music lover, a self-taught conductor who does it for love of the music. In 1992 he conducted an orchestra for the first time, thanks to the support of the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela and its then music director, Eduardo Marturet. On that occasion, he conducted Wagner’s Meistersinger Prelude.

Since 1996 he has conducted on various occasions the Octeto Académico de Caracas in arrangements for wind octet of Beethoven’s Seventh and Eighth Symphonies as well as excerpts from Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

In 1996, he again conducted the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela in Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and works by Wagner. Maestro Sándor Végh, who was music director of the Camerata Academica Salzburg, and who twice came to Caracas, praised this interpretation of Beethoven’s Seventh, a recording of which he was able to hear in Salzburg shortly before his death.

In October of 1997, Eduardo Chibás conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. As a result of this concert, he was invited to Portugal, where in February of 1999 he conducted Beethoven’s Eroica with the Orchestra of the North of Portugal. On his return from Europe, he began a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Carabobo. This cycle was issued on CD in Venezuela, the first complete set of Beethoven symphonies produced in the country.

In May 2001, he conducted the Camerata Salzburg in the Teatro Municipal de Caracas, in a program that included Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Violin Concerto, this last piece with Alexander Janiczek as soloist.

In recent years he has continued to conduct the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Carabobo. In May of 2004 he conducted Bruckner’s 7^th Symphony, the first time this work had ever been performed by the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela. In 2005, he conducted the premiere in Venezuela of Bruckner’s 8^th Symphony. Both of these live recordings have been released on CD and are listed in this discography.