Danail Rachev

Music Director & Conductor

Heralded by critics as “a musician of real depth, sensitivity and authority,” Danail Rachev is currently in his inaugural season as music director and conductor of the Eugene Symphony, a title that has previously been held by renowned conductors Marin Alsop, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and Giancarlo Guerrero. Highlights of the 2009-2010 season with the Eugene Symphony include performances of the five Beethoven piano concerti with soloists including Inon Barnatan, Angela Hewitt and Garrick Ohlsson; conducting John Adams’ concerto Dharma at Big Sur with Tracy Silverman on electric violin; and leading the Eugene Symphony Chorus in a performance of Mozart’s Coronation Mass. 

In addition to his role as music director and conductor of the Eugene Symphony, Rachev is in his second season with the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he is assistant conductor. In this capacity, Rachev conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in several concerts each season and will work closely with Charles Dutoit in preparations for the orchestra’s Asian tour in spring 2010. 

The 2009-2010 season has also seen several important guest conducting debuts for Rachev, including engagements with the London Philharmonic, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. 

Rachev has also been featured in concerts with CityMusic Cleveland. The 2008-2009 season saw Rachev return to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and make debuts with the the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony, the Orquestra Nacional do Porto and the Nashville Symphony. Rachev was Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 2005-2008 where he led numerous public concerts and education programs. Of his main series debut the Dallas Morning News wrote: “One of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s best concerts of the past year... start to finish, assistant conductor Danail Rachev got the music unfailingly right, and viscerally compelling.“ 

In 2002-2003 Rachev was the first ever Conducting Fellow of the New World Symphony where he studied with Michael Tilson Thomas and worked alongside him on many occasions. His debut and subsequent appearances in numerous subscription, family, and chamber music concerts were met with consistent critical acclaim. In his native Bulgaria Rachev has worked with several ensembles including the Russe State Opera, where he led performances of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia. 

Danail Rachev was born in Shumen, Bulgaria and trained at the State Musical Academy in Sofia, where he received degrees in orchestral and choral conducting. He moved to the United States to study at the Peabody Conservatory on a full scholarship, graduating in 2001. His conducting teachers have included Gustav Meier, Michael Tilson Thomas, Vassil Kazandjiev, David Zinman, and Leonard Slatkin.

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