Julian Kuerti
One of the most significant conducting talents to emerge in recent years, Canadian conductor Julian Kuerti has quickly made a name for himself with his confident style, artistic integrity and passion for musical collaboration. Kuerti has led numerous orchestras across North America including the Boston, Houston, Montreal, Toronto, Colorado and Utah symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and this past April, a thrilling last-minute substitution with the Cincinnati Symphony that resulted in immediate re-engagements for Summer 2010 and Fall 2011. The Cincinnati Enquirer critic wrote: “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard ‘The Pines of the Appian Way’ begin with such inner heat and mystery and build to a climax of such explosive power, with trumpets blazing from the balcony. There was clearly chemistry happening onstage, and the musicians performed magnificently for him.”
In the 2010/11 season, Kuerti makes debuts with the Atlanta, Seattle, New Jersey, Vancouver, Rochester, Toledo and Quebec symphonies and Los Angeles and St. Paul chamber orchestras; returns to Utah Symphony and National Arts Centre Orchestra, and makes his New York City Opera debut at Lincoln Center on Oliver Knussen’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”
Highlights of his 2009/2010 season included concerts with the Boston, Montreal, Colorado and Utah symphony orchestras and National Arts Centre Orchestra at the 2010 Vancouver Cultural Olympiad. He made debuts in Europe with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Bochumer Symphoniker in Germany. Previous engagements include the San Antonio, Winnipeg and Victoria symphonies, Calgary Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Concepción in Chile and Berliner Symphoniker.
Having recently completed his post as assistant conductor to James Levine at the Boston Symphony, Kuerti made his BSO subscription debut in 2008 with Leon Fleischer as soloist. He returned to the BSO podium on two last-minute occasions that year: one for an ailing Levine with Peter Serkin and another for an indisposed Rozhdestvensky with Lynn Harrell. The Boston Globe lauded him on all three instances, writing the third time that “Kuerti rose to the occasion and pulled off a triumphant concert. This was easily his finest hour – or two-and-a-half – with the orchestra thus far.” In 2009, in addition to a Tanglewood performance with Yo-Yo Ma, Kuerti returned to the BSO for three programs in one month; substituting in for part of James Levine’s all-Beethoven cycle, he conducted the Third and Fourth symphonies, and he also led an all-Russian program. His tenure as assistant conductor culminated in 2010 on a Ligeti, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky program, which The Boston Globe exclaimed “was a marvelous performance.”
Kuerti was born in Toronto into one of Canada’s most distinguished musical families; his father is famed pianist Anton Kuerti. He began his instrumental training on the violin, studying with some of Canada’s finest teachers. While completing an honors degree in engineering and physics at the University of Toronto, Kuerti kept up the violin, performing as concertmaster and soloist with various Canadian orchestras. After taking a year off and touring Brazil with Kahana, a Toronto-based world-music band, Kuerti began his conducting studies in the year 2000 at the University of Toronto. That summer he was accepted as a student at the renowned Pierre Monteux School for Conductors in Maine, where he studied for two years with Michael Jinbo and Claude Monteux.
Kuerti studied with David Zinman at the American Academy of Conducting at Aspen in 2004, and with acclaimed Finnish Maestro Jorma Panula at the NAC Conductors Programme in Ottawa. In 2005, he was one of two conducting fellows at Tanglewood, where he had the opportunity to learn in masterclasses from James Levine, Kurt Masur, Stefan Asbury and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, performing with the TMC orchestra and fellows throughout the summer. That same year, Kuerti also finished his work with Lutz Köhler at the University of the Arts Berlin, whom he had studied with since 2001.
Kuerti served as assistant conductor to Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra during the 2006/07 season, which he led in performances of Viktor Ullmann’s opera “Der Kaiser von Atlantis” the following season. From 2005 to 2008, he was founding artistic director and principal conductor of Berlin’s Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, with whom he recorded the album “When We Were Trees” by Italian cellist and composer Giovanni Sollima for Sony/BMG. Kuerti conducted the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in music by Golijov and Foss on “Plain Song, Fantastic Dances,” released in January 2011 on the BSO’s own label.
