Link to the Show / Show Notes"Lenny (Bernstein) said to me – music is music! There is good music, there is bad music. Just do the good music and it doesn’t matter what it is!"
John Axelrod was born in Texas and studied music initially at Harvard, with advanced studies with the renowned musicians Leonard Bernstein, IIlya Musin and Christoph Eschenbach.
In 1996 he founded the Houston Orchestra X and has since been Conductor Laureate of that group as well as Principal Guest Conductor of Sinfonietta Cracovia and Music Director of the Luzerner Sinfonie Orchester.
Among the conducting highlights of his career thus far are guest appearance with the Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and Gewandhaus orchestras Leipzig - to name a few.
A champion of new music - Axelrod’s most recent recordings include Wolfgang Rihm’s piano concerto Sotto Voce II (together with Sotto Voce I) with the Luzerner Sinfonie Orchester and the pianist Nicolas Hodges; Fazil Say’s new violin concerto, 2001 Nights in a Harem, with Patricia Kopatchinskaya and new works by composer Franz Schreker.
In this week’s Inspired Minds, John Axelrod talks to Peter Zimmermann about his unusual musical beginnings, the experience of having Leonard Bernstein as his mentor and why his style of conducting is so successful with orchestras.
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