Biography

John Axelrod was trained by Leonard Bernstein personally in 1982, and graduated from Harvard University in 1988. He also studied at the St.  Petersburg Conservatory with Ilya Musin in 1996 and was mentored by Christoph Eschenbach from 1997 to 2000, when he made his professional debut as Assistant Conductor for “Parsifal” at the Bayreuth Festival.

Maestro Axelrod was Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi „laVerdi“ in Italy (2001 to 2017), Principal Conductor of the Sinfonietta Cracovia in Poland (2001 to 2009), Musical Director and Principal Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland (2004 to 2009), Musical Director of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire in France (2009 to 2013) and Musical Director of “Hollywood in Vienna” in Austria (2009 to 2011) with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2014, John Axelrod became Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla. In 2019, he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Kyoto Symphony Orchestra.

Since 1996, John Axelrod has conducted over 175 orchestras, 33 operas and 60 world premieres across the globe. He has recorded core and contemporary repertoire for Sony Classical, Warner Classics, Ondine, Universal, Naïve and Nimbus.

John Axelrod is actively committed to working with young professional musicians, was Principal Conductor of the Paci?c Music Festival in Sapporo in 2016 and 2018, has toured with the Santander Orchestra in Poland, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra to the Salzburg Festival, the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Italy, the Accademia della Scala to Muscat, the Junge Norddeutsche Philharmonie in Germany and the Vienna Jeunesse Orchester in Austria.

John Axelrod has authored several books, including “Wie großartige Musik entsteht” and “Lenny and Me: On Conducting Bernstein’s Symphonies”.