Joshua Weilerstein, Music Director
Praised for “intense, eloquently moving and spectacularly knife-edge” performances, Joshua Weilerstein is highly sought after worldwide for his enthusiasm and profound insight into composers spanning from Gesualdo to Beethoven to Grant Still to Rouse to Shaw. Starting in the 2021 - 2022 season he will join Phoenix as Music Director, conducting three concerts next season, beginning with his debut in January of 2022.
Weilerstein served as the Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne from 2015 - 2021. Over the past six seasons, the orchestra has thrived under Weilerstein’s leadership and has cemented its reputation as one of Europe’s leading chamber orchestras. Weilerstein has greatly expanded the scope of the orchestra’s repertoire, and together they have released successful and critically acclaimed recordings, and toured throughout Europe, joined by soloists such as Juan Diego Florez, Lucas Debargue, and Albrecht Mayer.
Born into a musical family, Joshua 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 orchestral concert. This 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. He was subsequently appointed as Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic, where he served from 2012-2015.
Weilerstein has a flourishing guest conducting career, regularly conducting the world’s top orchestras, such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit and Milwaukee, London Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Finnish Radio Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, and the BBC Philharmonic, among others.
Weilerstein is deeply committed to programming both traditional and contemporary repertoire and endeavours to present music from under-represented composers at each concert. He hosts Sticky Notes, a wildly successful classical music podcast for music lovers and newcomers alike, which has been downloaded over two million times in 160 countries.
When not conducting, Weilerstein lives in London with his wife Bernice and their two rabbits Sami and Abby. He enjoys practicing the violin, clarinet, and piano, taking walks in Richmond Park, and rewatching episodes of The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, and Schitt’s Creek.
Website: www.joshuaweilerstein.com