the BPO's Assistant Conductor for the previous three seasons. Bychkov announced that the BPO would make its first tour of Europe in addition to directing the BPO's 50th anniversary season and making a commemorative recording featuring Roberta Peters of the Metropolitan Opera. The 1988 European tour consisted of performances at Musikvereinssaal in Vienna, as well as concerts in Geneva, Zurich, Milan, and Frankfurt and other venues in Germany and Switzerland. Bychkov resigned in 1989 to take over the Orchestre de Paris, with Chilean maestro Maximiano Valdes replacing him as music director. In 1998 JoAnn Falletta was appointed as the new maestro, becoming the first woman named as the music director of a major U.S. symphony orchestra. Under her direction, the orchestra reinitiated a series of broadcasts on public radio and returned to Carnegie Hall in 2004 and 2013 as part of Spring for Music. Falletta led the orchestra on numerous multi-city tours of Florida, at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in 2012, and in 2018 led a five-city tour of Poland at the invitation of the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw. With Falletta, the BPO also has issued more than 50 new CDs, including twenty on Naxos Records, and has specialized in recording lesser-known European works from the late 19th and early 20th century. Soloists who have appeared with the BPO under maestro Falletta include Van Cliburn, Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joshua Bell, and Midori. The BPO is one of the most often played orchestras on Performance Today, and BPO concerts are therefore broadcast in over 200 cities annually. Its CDs are frequently featured on the Sirius radio network and it has been featured three times on NPR's From the Top. Music directors Lajos Shuk (1935–1936) Franco Autori (1936–1945) William Steinberg (1945–1952) Izler Solomon (1952–1953, conductor-in-residence) Josef Krips (1954–1963) Lukas Foss (1963–1971) Michael Tilson Thomas (1971–1979) Julius Rudel (1979–1985) Semyon Bychkov (1985–1989) Maximiano Valdes (1989–1998) JoAnn Falletta (1999–present) References External links Official site BPO Performing Archives Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks SUNY Buffalo link to Buffalo Philharmonic page, performing archive Join the Staff Musical groups established in 1934 Music of Buffalo, New York Economy of Buffalo, New York 1934 establishments in New York (state) Orchestras based in New York (state)