Highlights of Weilerstein’s 22/23 season include return engagements with the London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Aalborg Symphony, Swedish Chamber, Netherlands Philharmonic orchestras, Orchestre National de Belgique and Orchestre National de Lille, his debut with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and RTVE Symphony (Madrid) and in North America returns to the Indianapolis Symphony, Vancouver Symphony and Florida orchestras. He will also return to the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, with whom he was Artistic Director from 2015-2021.
In recent seasons, Weilerstein’s guest engagements have included concerts with the Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Tonhalle Zurich, NDR Hannover, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and in the US the San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Philadelphia, and New York Philharmonic orchestras. During his time as Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Weilerstein was instrumental in expanding the orchestra’s repertoire and together they released critically acclaimed recordings of music by Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Smyth and Ives along with a complete Beethoven symphony cycle on DVD; they also toured throughout Europe with soloists such as Juan Diego Florez, Christian Tetzlaff and Albrecht Mayer.
Born into a musical family, Weilerstein’s formative experience with classical music was as a violinist on tour to Panama and Guatemala with the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra of Boston, where the orchestra performed for thousands of young people who had never heard a live orchestra concert. This experience sparked a desire in Weilerstein to pursue a career in classical music. While pursuing his Master’s degree in violin and conducting at the New England Conservatory, Weilerstein won both the First Prize and the Audience Prize at the Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen in 2009 and he was subsequently appointed as Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 2012-2015. In 2021/2022 he became the Music Director of Phoenix, a dynamic and ambitious orchestra in Boston devoted to the presentation of classical music concerts in accessible and unforgettable ways and to the promotion of music by composers whose works have been unjustly overlooked.
In 2017, inspired by the brilliant musical evangelism practised by Leonard Bernstein, Weilerstein launched a classical music podcast called “Sticky Notes.” The show, for both music lovers and newcomers alike, has become wildly successful with more than 2 million downloads in 165 countries.
2022/23 season / 501 words. Not to be altered without permission.