Born in Hollywood, California, conductor-composer Julian Wachner began his musical education at age 4 with cello and piano lessons and studied improvisation, composition, organ and theory under Gerre Hancock while a boy chorister at the St. Thomas Choir School in New York City. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University’s School for the Arts where he studied orchestral conducting with David Hoose, piano with Benjamin Pasternack, voice with Joan Heller and Joy McIntyre and composition with Lukas Foss, Theodore Antoniou, Charles Fussell and Marjorie Merryman.

In 1990, at the age of twenty, he was appointed University Organist and Music Director of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel with subsequent appointments to the faculty of the BU School of Theology and School for the Arts. He quickly became one of Boston’s most prominent musicians, constantly heralded in the press for the excellence and variety of his work.  In 2001, following a decade of extraordinary conducting activity and compositional output in New England, Wachner was appointed to the faculty of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University where he is currently associate professor of music and Principal Conductor for Opera McGill.

Today, he is one of the most active and versatile artists of his generation having appeared most recently with Glimmerglass Opera (Orphée), Toronto Operetta Company (Candide), Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Music Academy of the West, The Boston Pops, Calgary Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, Pacific Symphony, The Metropolis Orchestra (Chicago), Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, L’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, L’Orchestre Symphonique de l’Île, Tanglewood Young Artists’ Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony, New Haven Symphony, the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, and the Boston Bach Ensemble. Upcoming conducting engagements for the 2007-2008 season include orchestral engagements with the Sioux City Symphony, Portland Symphony, Honolulu Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony, and he will appear twice on the Kennedy Center Series of the Washington Chorus and Orchestra.

In the field of opera he has conducted Così fan tutte, Albert Herring, Christopher Sly, Turn of the Screw, Candide, Dido and Aeneus, Bastien und Bastienne, L’Enfant et les sortilèges, Gianni Schicchi, Vanessa, La Vie Parisienne and the world premiere of his own opera, Evangeline Revisited with Opera McGill. In Boston, Wachner conducted Orfeo ed Eurydice, La finta giardiniera, (Boston Conservatory), The Mikado and The Gondoliers (Opera Boston), and Albert Herring with the Red House Opera Group. The Boston Globe hailed his performance of The Mikado as the best opera performance of 2001.  In addition, he has served as assistant conductor for Dido and Aeneus, Così fan tutte and Tamerlano at the Spoleto Festival USA and for The Rake’s Progress and The Tenderland with the Opera Laboratory Theater Company of Boston.

Active also as a composer, Wachner's original music has been described as “jazzy, energetic, and ingenious” by Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe , “bold and atmospheric” by the New York Times, “highly enjoyable, touching, clever, and inspiring” by the Deseret News, and “upbeat, jazzy, glittering, and poignant” by the Providence Journal. Recent commissions include the Boston Landmarks Orchestra (The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 2004 and Lifting the Curse, 2006), l'Orchestre Métropolitain (Triptych for Organ and Large Orchestra), Cornell University's Glee Club (4 Scenes from the Rubayat), and his first opera, Evangeline Revisited, for Opera McGill in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Other commissions and performances include the Spoleto Festival USA (Cymbale), the New Haven Symphony (Planet X, Pluto, Apollo's Fire), the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, Montreal (Psalm Cycle III), the San Diego Symphony (Regina Coeli), the Providence Singers (Canticles), the Quincy Symphony (Clarinet Concerto), the Cape Ann Symphony (Celebrations), Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Maryland (Behold the Tabernacle), the Charleston Symphony and Chorus (Regina Coeli), and Alea III (Cycles). His complete catalogue of music is published exclusively by E. C. Schirmer.

Several commercial recordings have been released in the last few years including The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Senator Ted Kennedy, narrator), Lifting the Curse (Landmarks Orchestra with NPR’s Bill Littlefield, narrator), Bach's Christmas Oratorio with the Boston Bach Ensemble, Britten's The Company of Heaven with the Back Bay Chorale and Orchestra, Coro Allegro's Somewhere I Have Never Traveled featuring Wachner's choral song-cycle Sometimes I Feel Alive, The Boston Sinfonietta's Julian Wachner: Chamber Music, and the Boston Bach Ensemble's Julian Wachner: Sacred Music.  His Triptych for Organ and Large Orchestra, premiered to great acclaim in 2006, will be released by ATMA Classique with the Metropolitan Orchestra of Greater Montreal in 2008.

Dedicated to education and developing young artists, Wachner has directed the Boston Conservatory Orchestra, the Young Artists’ Orchestra of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Music Academy of the West Chamber Orchestra, McGill Classical Orchestra, McGill Symphony Orchestra, Boston University Orchestra, Brown University Orchestra, UC Irvine Orchestra, McGill Chamber Singers, McGill Baroque Orchestra, McGill Wind Symphony and the McGill Symphonic Choir. He has also served as director of the Young Artists’ Composition Program at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Previous faculty positions include those at Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He has served as music director of the Bach-Academie de Montreal (2003-2007), The Providence Singers (1996-2006), The Back Bay Chorale (1996-2002), The Boston Bach Ensemble (1995-2002), the Red House Opera Group (Summer 2002), the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists’ Composition Program (1999, 2002, 2003), and of Marsh Chapel at Boston University (1990-2001).

Authorized Update, September 2007