In February 2008 Chilean conductor Maximiano Valdés was named music director of the Puerto Rico Symphony, and in March 2010, artistic director of the internationally famous Festival Casals of Puerto Rico. He recently ended a sixteen-year tenure as music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias in Spain, is a former music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and served as chief conductor of both the orchestra and opera at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile. During his career Maximiano Valdés has guest conducted most of the leading orchestras in the United States, including the St. Louis, National, Montreal, Baltimore, Seattle, Houston, Dallas, and New World Symphonies and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Also an active international conductor, he has led the Dresden Philharmonie, London Symphony, Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw and Katowice Philharmonics, Lisbon Philharmonic, Israel Chamber Orchestra and many others in Latin America and Asia. He has recorded an extensive collection of Spanish composers for Naxos Records with the orchestra of the Principality of Asturias.