Joshua Weilerstein
conductor
About this Artist
Making his subscription debut with the New York Philharmonic this year, Joshua Weilerstein also enters his third season as the orchestra's Assistant Conductor. In 2009 Mr. Weilerstein, then twenty-one years old, was unanimously named the winner of the 2009 Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen, Denmark. His first-prize honors included a series of engagements with major Scandinavian orchestras, the first of which was the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in June 2009, marking Mr. Weilerstein’s professional conducting debut.
During the 2013-14 season, Mr. Weilerstein makes several debuts in the US with the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Fort Worth, and New Mexico (Albuquerque). He also returns to the Florida Orchestra (Tampa). In Europe, he debuts with the Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Belgique, Salzburg Mozarteumorchester, and the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. He also will return to the BBC Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and Northern Sinfonia, among others.
Born into a musical family, Mr. Weilerstein decided to enter the music profession after a life-changing experience during a youth orchestra tour of South and Central America. He studied at the New England Conservatory, from which he received his dual Master of Music degrees in orchestral conducting with Hugh Wolff and in violin with Lucy Chapman in 2011. He spent the summers of 2009 and 2010 studying with David Zinman and Robert Spano at the Aspen Music Festival, where he was awarded the Robert J. Harth and Aspen Conducting Prizes, its most distinguished honors.
In 2007 the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (SBSO) engaged Mr. Weilerstein as a violin soloist. Shortly after this appearance, the SBSO asked him to join the first violin section for the orchestra’s 2007 American tour with Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, making Mr. Weilerstein the ensemble’s first non-Venezuelan guest member. In January 2010 he made his guest conducting debut with the SBSO. Since then, he has rapidly become one of the most sought-after young conductors in the world. Recent engagements include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, to name but a few.
When not studying scores, Mr. Weilerstein spends his spare time practicing the violin and exploring New York City.