James Feddeck, Assistant Conductor of ‘The Cleveland Orchestra’ and Music Director of the ‘Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’, ist the recipient of this year’s Sir Georg Solti Conductor Award. Vladimir Kulenovic, Ankush Kumar Bahl, Roger Kalia, and Christopher James Lees were all named as recipients of Solti U.S. Career Assistance Awards.
Also known as ‘The Solti Fellow’, the Foundation’s $25,000 award is among the largest grants currently given to American conductors in the formative years of their careers. The Career Assistance Awards are given by the Foundation to encourage and provide critical assistance to talented young conductors at the start of their professional careers.
James Feddeck is in his fourth year as Assistant Conductor of ‘The Cleveland Orchestra’ and Music Director of the ‘Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra’. Since his Cleveland Orchestra debut in August 2009, he has led the orchestra in a number of new initiatives including collaborative performances with the Cleveland Play House and the Cleveland Museum of Art. He made his Severance Hall debut in 2011, stepping in for Franz Welser-Möst and recently led sold-out subscription performances of Orff’s Carmina Burana to critical acclaim. An Oberlin Conservatory alumnus, Feddeck holds the distinction of having been admitted in four areas: piano, oboe, organ, and conducting. He further studied as a protégé of David Zinman at the Aspen Music Festival and School where he received both the Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize and the Aspen Conducting Prize. He was unanimous winner of the Sixth Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition and is a recipient of previous support from the Solti Foundation U.S. (a Career Assistance Grant in 2009). In September 2010, he received Oberlin College’s first Outstanding Young Alumni Award for professional achievement and contributions to society, the college’s highest distinction to alumni of his generation.
