Music Director of the San Jose Symphony Orchestra from 1992 until 2002, Leonid Grin has been widely hailed for his passionate approach to music and his eloquent, powerful interpretations. Coming to the San Jose Symphony with a wealth of international conducting experience, he quickly established a successful relationship with the orchestra, earning enthusiastic accolades from audiences and critics alike. In 1999 he and the orchestra were given an ASCAP award for their commitment to contemporary music programming. From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Grin was General Music Director of the Saarländisches Staatstheater, Saarbrüken. His other titled positions have included Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Dortmund Opera and Orchestra for the 1999/2000 season. and earlier as Music Director of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland from 1990–94.

Born in Ukraine, Maestro Grin gave his first piano recital at the age of 7. At 11, he won the Young Composer’s Competition, and later studied at the Dnipropetrovsk college of Music and the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied composition and conducting under Leo Ginsburg and Kiril Kondrashin. After graduating from the Conservatory in 1977, Leonid Grin worked as a regular guest conductor with the leading Soviet ensembles, including the St Petersburg Philharmonic and the Moscow State Radio Orchestra. Maestro Grin emigrated to the United States in 1981 where he joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute and won the Exxon Endowment Conductors Fellowship. Over the years, he went on to conduct many of the North American Orchestras, including the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Houston Symphony, San Diego and Vancouver Symphony.

Leonid Grin has also worked with many of the major European orchestras throughout his career including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

Mr Grin’s recordings with the Berlin Radio Orchestra and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra include music of Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Mellartin and his recordings for the complete symphonies of the Finnish composer Erkki Mellartin with the Tampere Philharmonic have won wide recognition.