The African American conductor James DePriest is the nephew of the singer Marian Anderson. DePreist is the Permanent Conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Laureate Music Director of the Oregon Symphony, and Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at the Juilliard School. DePreist has previously led LOrchestre Symphonique de Québec, the Malmo Symphony in Sweden, and LOrchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo.

James DePriest was born in Philadelphia in 1936.  He studied composition at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, and earned his B.A. and M.A. Degrees at the University of Pennsylvania.  He contracted polio while in Bangkok, Thailand on a State Department tour in 1962, which left him paralyzed in both legs and forced to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Nonetheless he won first prize in the Dmitri Mitropolous International Conducting Competition.  Leonard Bernstein chose him as Assistant Conductor for the 1965-66 season of the New York Philharmonic.  DePriest’s European debut was with the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 1969.  Two years later he was appointed Associate Conductor of the National Symphony in Washington, D.C.  

From 1976 to 1983, James DePriest was Music Director of the Quebec Symphony.  He was chosen as Music Director and Conductor of the Oregon Symphony in 1980.  DePriest is widely credited with raising the international profile of the Oregon Symphony. To celebrate his 20th anniversary with the Oregon Symphony, a supporter contributed one million dollars for a five-year recording project.

DePriest has over 50 recordings to his credit.  Among his discs is Delos 3278, which features two important works by Igor Stravinsky, “The Rite of Spring” and “The Firebird Suite.”  In 2000 DePreist was awarded the Ditson Conductors Award by Columbia University.  Sidelined by a kidney transplant in December 2001, DePriest returned to the podium the following March, in a concert attended by his wife Ginette and his doctors, to whom he expressed his appreciation.  A published