With her “incisive presence on the podium,” “emotive … without being in any sense showy” (Mark Morris, Edmonton Journal), Cuban-born conductor Cosette Justo Valdés has emerged as a rising star on the world concert stage. Beloved as a musician who wins the respect of her colleagues and the hearts of audiences, Ms. Valdés is currently the Artistic and Music Director of the Vancouver Island Symphony (British Columbia). Previously she was Resident Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. A rising star on the international stage, Ms. Valdés will make her debut conducting London Symphonia in 2025-26.
Her debut appearances in 2024-25 with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra (Orange County, California), the Winterthur Symphony (Switzerland), the Utah Symphony, the Brevard Music Festival (North Carolina) and the Sacramento Philharmonic mark the tempo of a conducting career whose recent highlights include a “mindblowing” (Ottawa Citizen) collaboration with Esperanza Spalding and the National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, a celebrated production of Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” at the Edmonton Opera which she conducted from the harpsichord, two self-curated concert experiences merging the music of living composers with the words of living poets at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the birth of a new opera by Ian Cusson “Indians on Vacation”, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, and the world premiere performances of compositions written by Indigenous Canadian composers from all corners of Canada including cellist and Carnegie Hall artistic partner Cris Derksen, as well as four uniquely staged and theatrical renderings of Handel’s Messiah with four different orchestras.
