Julian Kuerti
(c) Dario Acosta
The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra (Michigan) has announced that Canadian conductor Julian Kuerti, 41, has been appointed as its new Music Director from the 2018-2019 season, succeeding Raymond Harvey, who ended his eighteen-year tenure with the orchestra in 2017, and has since then become the Orchestra’s first Music Director Emeritus.
Julian Kuerti was born in Toronto, his father being pianist Anton Kuerti. He began his musical training on the violin. While completing an honors degree in engineering and physics at the University of Toronto, he continued performing as both a concertmaster and soloist with various Canadian orchestras.
In 2000, he returned to the University of Toronto to begin his conducting studies. He continued developing his craft at Maine’s Pierre Monteux School for Conductors, and studied also with David Zinman, Jorma Panula and Lutz Köhler at the University of the Arts Berlin.
Having been Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montreal and Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfonica Universidad de Concepcion in Chile, he has also served as assistant conductor at the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Budapest Festival Orchestra. He is the founding artistic director of Berlin’s Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop.
In Europe, Kuerti’s appearances include concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony, Ireland’s RTE National Orchestra of Dublin, The National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg.
