Rafael Payare: Conducting should always feel like your last breath
Rafael Payare is grateful to the traffic chaos in Caracas. As a member of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, he would often get last-minute phone calls from jammed conductors telling him to start the rehearsal for them. The experience was invaluable and at the age of 37 he is now one of the leading conductors of his generation – he has just been announced as the new Music Director of the San Diego Symphony. He joins the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on 27th March with a programme of Mozart and Strauss, which will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
