Juanjo Mena forced to end conducting career earlier than planned

Spanish conductor Juanjo Mena has ended his conducting career earlier than planned, after the progression of Alzheimer’s disease made it impossible for him to complete the farewell engagements scheduled for the remainder of 2026.

Mena had announced in March that he would retire from the podium at the end of 2026, intending to spend the year giving a series of farewell concerts. According to Spanish newspaper El Correo, however, the disease has progressed more rapidly than expected, forcing him to withdraw from his remaining appearances.

His final concert therefore took place on 12 August at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre in San Sebastián, during the Quincena Musical, where he conducted the Euskadiko Orkestra. At the time, the performance was not announced as his definitive farewell.

Earlier this month, Mena withdrew for health reasons from concerts with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra scheduled for 15 and 16 October. El Correo now reports that he will also not conduct the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in December, an engagement that had been expected to bring his four-decade career to a close.

The August performance in San Sebastián thus became an unintended final appearance. According to El Correo, preparing the concert had already proved difficult for the conductor, who received significant support from the orchestra and its concertmaster. The audience gave him a prolonged standing ovation at the end of the performance.

Born in Vitoria-Gasteiz in 1965, Mena served as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 2011 to 2018 and previously led the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra for nine seasons. His international career included appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others.

Mena publicly disclosed his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 2025. When announcing his retirement in March, he had hoped that his remaining concerts would serve as a celebration of a career spanning four decades. The accelerated progression of the disease has now brought that farewell period to an earlier end.