Winner of the 2018 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award by the U.S Solti Foundation, German based American conductor, Roderick Cox, has been praised as a conductor who is “paving the way” (NBC News) and recognized as a “trailblazer…a conductor who will be amongst the vanguard” (Minnesota StarTribune). Cox has gained international attention for recent appearances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Houston Grand Opera, and Philharmonia Orchestra (London). 

Highlights and debuts in the 19/20 season include concerts with Orchestre de Paris, Dresdner Philharmonie, Kristiansand Symfoniorkester, Mannheim Staatsorchester, and Iceland Symphony Orchestra. In the US, Roderick will debut with the New York Philharmonic for the New York Philharmonic’s Young Peoples Concerts Series, the Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, the Sphinx Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony and San Antonio Symphony. 

Highlights among recent engagements as a guest conductor include debut subscription concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, his opera debut with Houston Grand Opera (Bizet’s Pêcheurs de Perles)as well as further debuts with BBC Symphony, Sinfonia Varsovia (Warsaw), BBC Scottish Symphony and with Philharmonia Orchestra (London) at the Brighton Festival. Further US Summer performances included a debut with the Houston Symphony and re-invitations to The Cleveland Orchestra (Blossom Music Festival) and the Minnesota Orchestra 

Through his passion for education and diversity and inclusion in the arts, Cox started the Roderick Cox Music Initiative (RCMI) in 2018 a project to help provide scholarship funds to young musicians of colour from unrepresented communities, allowing them to pay for instruments, music lessons and summer camps. Cox and his new initiative will be featured in an upcoming PBS/FilmNorth documentary called Conducting Life, premiering May 2020.

Born in Macon, Georgia, Cox attended the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, and then later attended Northwestern University graduating with a master’s degree in 2011. He was awarded the Robert J. Harth Conducting Prize from the Aspen Music Festival in 2013 and has held Fellowships with the Chicago Sinfonietta as part of their Project Inclusion program and at the Chautauqua Music Festival, where he was a David Effron Conducting Fellow. Roderick Cox was appointed as Associate Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra under conductor Osmo Vänskä in 2016 for three seasons having previously served as assistant conductor for a year.