Born in Craiova (Romania) in 1980, Mihnea Ignat is one of the leading Romanian conductors of his generation. He is currently Principal Conductor of the Romanian National Opera of Timisoara (Romania) and Principal Conductor of the Elche City Symphony Orchestra (Spain). He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Bucharest National Opera (Romania) between 2018 and 2020, Principal and Artistic Director of the Philharmonic Orchestra of the University of Alicante (Spain) between 2005 and 2017, and Associate Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of the Dominican Republic during the 2009/2010 season.
In October 2010, Mihnea Ignat obtained the Special Prize of the Filarmonica Toscanini at the “A. Toscanini” International Conducting Competition held in Parma (Italy). He was also a semi-finalist in the international competitions “D. Flick” (London, 2008) and “G. Solti” (Frankfurt, 2008).
In the field of opera, Mr. Ignat has been working as Principal Guest Conductor of the Romanian National Opera (Bucharest, Romania) between 2018 and 2020. Highlights that cemented his reputation as an opera conductor include conducting the new production of G. Verdi’s Otello at that theatre with stage direction by Giancarlo del Monaco, and the acclaimed new production of G. B. Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona with stage direction by Silviu Purcarete at the Timisoara Opera. He regularly conducts titles such as Nabucco, Il Trovatore, Aida, Simon Boccanegra, Otello, La Traviata, Carmen, Rigoletto, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, L’Elisir d’Amore, Madama Butterfly, The Marriage of Figaro, among others.
Among the orchestras with which Mihnea Ignat has collaborated are the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (RTÉ), the National Radio Symphony Orchestra of Romania, the Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra, the “G. Enescu” Philharmonic Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Filarmonica Toscanini (Parma, Italy), the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic of Galicia, the Málaga Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of the Region of Murcia, the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, the “Freixenet” Symphony Orchestra of the “Reina Sofía” School of Music of Madrid, and the vast majority of symphony orchestras in his native country, Romania.
Mihnea Ignat has accompanied great soloists on stage such as Juan Diego Flórez, Jerome Lowenthal, John O’Conor, Stefan Milenkovich, Ning Feng, Liviu Prunaru, Lina Tur Bonet, Renata Pokupic, Miguel Ángel Estrella, Viktor Derevianko, Alexandru Tomescu, Erzhan Kulibaev, among others.
Mihnea Ignat holds a degree in orchestral conducting from the National University of Music of Bucharest (Romania), where he also studied composition. He subsequently obtained a Master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting at the same university under the direction of the renowned Romanian conductor Horia Andreescu. He is currently in his second year of his doctoral research with the theme Verdi’s interpretative references: Otello, a creative arc in time at the same university mentioned above.
Since the 2023-2024 academic year, he has been Professor of Concertation in the Voice Chair “Alfredo Kraus” Fundación Ramón Areces, of the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid.