Jorge Mario Uribe Gonzalez

JORGE MARIO URIBE is an outstanding and talented Latin American conductor and soloist.

Winner of the Jury Honor Prize at the Black Sea International Conducting Competition, he was also a semifinalist at the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra International Conducting Competition and semifinalist in European Union Conducting Competition, which had over 300 competitors from five continents.

Recently, maestro Uribe was a finalist (second place) at the International concourse to choose the principal conductor organized by the Salta Symphony Orchestra in Argentina, one of the most important orchestras in this country.

For the last 10 years he has been associated conductor of the Cali Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) in Colombia. As the leader of this institution, he has conducted a large number of season concerts in which he developed an extensive symphony repertoire as well as a series of special projects by associating the music of the great composers to other artistic expressions: the concert homage to the “400 years of the death of William Shakespeare” and the “200 years of Lord Byron’s Manfred” in collaboration with the Performing Arts Department of the Universidad del Valle, the concert commemorating the centenary of the death of Claude Debussy about the life and work of the master and the impressionism, where he conducted and also played as soloist are some of these projects.

In 2018 he was invited to conduct the opening concert of the 30th Carpineto Romano Festival in Italy in a 17th-century Cloister leading the Italian Orchestra of the city of Latina, Latina Philharmonia. He also was a guest conductor in the EAFIT Symphony orchestra, Salta Symphony Orchestra, and Universidad Distrital de Bogotá Symphonic Band.

Uribe is also a distinguished arranger and has premiered his own works, including orchestrations on 8 Lieder by Franz Schubert for tenor and chamber orchestra and his arrangements “Sweet Christmas” and “The Holy time” for tenor, choir and large orchestra. Additionally, he has a national prize in composition.

His background as a performer is also remarkable. He held the position of principal solo clarinet in the Cali Philharmonic Orchestra for many years before he became conductor of the orchestra; he has participated as guest principal clarinet in the National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia and the City of London Orchestra and performed as a soloist many of the most important concertos for his instrument as well as the most important repertoire in chamber music. His invitations as a soloist stand out in 2 editions of the Cartagena International Music Festival, chamber music concerts in New York City and Connecticut with the firm Musical Arts Alliance, in Germany as a soloist with the Ensemble D´Accord and he has conducted and played chamber music with renowned musicians such as Colombian cellist Santiago Cañon (2nd prize in the International Tchaikovsky Competition) and others linked to institutions such as the Pittsburgh SO, the Chicago and Los Angeles Opera, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra or Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. In the summer of 2021 he was invited to play at the Steingraeber Kammermusiksaal in Bayreuth.

It was crucial for his career to study with his mentor, the Italian conductor and clarinet player Francesco Belli, who in turn studied with Sergiu Celibidache and Franco Ferrara, as well as his educational background in harmony, counterpoint, and analysis with professor Svetlana Boukchtaber, Sumna Cum Laude at the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory named after Rimsky-Korsakov.

At present, he continues his work as a conductor in the Cali Philharmonic Orchestra and teaches in the department of music at Universidad del Valle del Cauca.