In December 2011 Pablo Heras-Casado was announced Principal Conductor of the Orchestra of St Luke’s, beginning a four-year term with the ensemble which will include regular concerts at Carnegie Hall, New York. In the same month he was awarded the Medalla de Honor of the Rodriguez Acosta Foundation. The award, with previous winners including Manuel de Falla and Andrés Segovia Torres, was presented in Summer 2012. In February 2012, he was awarded with the Golden Medal of the City of Granada, his hometown, to recognise his already outstanding achievements in his young career.
Last season saw Heras-Casado make significant guest conducting debuts with orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Chicago and Boston symphony orchestras, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Mariinsky and Mahler Chamber orchestras, as well as the Staatskapelle Berlin. He also participated in a series of new music projects with Ensemble intercontemporain, both in Paris and at the Lucerne Festival with the Lucerne Festival Academy - on the personal invitation of Pierre Boulez with Peter Eötvös. The season also featured his debut at the Salzburger Festspiele with Klangforum Wien.
The 2012/13 season will see Pablo Heras-Casado make some significant return performances across the US, including the Chicago Symphony and San Francisco Symphony orchestras. In Europe, Pablo gives debut performances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Opera performances will include Peter Eötvös’s Angels in America with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Rigoletto with Deutsche Oper Berlin, Les Vêpres siciliennes with Oper Frankfurt and Il Postino with Teatro Real, starring Plácido Domingo.
Last season it was announced that Pablo would begin a significant relationship with harmonia mundi; his recording of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2, Lobgesang, with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and soloists Christiane Karg, Christina Landshamer and Michael Shade will be released in 2013. Another disc, recorded in his home city of Granada with the Freiburger Barockorchester, features Schubert's Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4 and will also be released in the same season. His direction of Rolando Villazón's L'elisir d'amore, at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden is due for DVD release by Euroarts.
A champion of contemporary music, Pablo has worked with Ensemble ACJW at Carnegie Hall, Klangforum Wien and Collegium Novum Zürich. His performance of repertoire including Stockhausen’s Gruppen resulted in him winning the 2007 Lucerne Festival Conductors’ Competition. The award was voted unanimously by a jury including Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös.