“Wachner has shown the kind of technical command, large-spiritedness, and fiery imagination that all but shout to the skies: ‘Major Talent!’” – Boston Globe
Professional Bio
Born in Hollywood, California and raised in New York City, Julian Wachner is one of North America’s most exciting and versatile musicians, sought-after as conductor, composer, and keyboard artist.
In his new position as the inaugural Director of Music and the Arts at New York’s historic Trinity Wall Street, Wachner serves as Principal Conductor of the Trinity Choir, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra and NOVUS NY, in addition to overseeing Trinity’s numerous and varied concert offerings, museum expositions, dance and theatre performances, poetry and literary readings, and educational and outreach initiatives in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.
This appointment complements his existing roles as Music Director of the Kennedy Center’s Grammy Award-winning Washington Chorus and as Principal Conductor of Opera McGill, Montreal. Wachner has also made memorable guest appearances with such major organizations as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Montreal and Pittsburgh Symphonies, the Handel and Haydn Society, Glimmerglass Opera, Hawaii Opera Theater, New York City Opera and the Boston Pops. A Baroque specialist, he was the founding Music Director of the Boston Bach Ensemble and the Bach Académie de Montréal, besides serving as Artistic Director of International Bach Festivals in Boston and Montreal.
Wachner’s performances inspire uncommon praise. The New York Times pronounced his Trinity Wall Street debut “superbly performed” and, later that season, noted that “he succeeded admirably” in presenting his first Messiah in New York City. Of his interpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, according to the Boston Globe, “there was genius here and no mistaking it.” The Washington Post declared a recent performance “exhilarating,” commenting: “Julian Wachner knows how to draw maximum drama from a score.” Following his account of the Messiah at the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns observed: “Few conductors have drawn such focused, committed, and meticulous music-making as Julian Wachner. … [He] built the music, line by line, as an architectural edifice, serving both the music’s emotional and more purely aesthetic elements.” As a result, Stearns “couldn’t help fantasize that [Wachner] might do an annual Philadelphia Orchestra festival of Bach and Handel.”
Last season, Wachner made New York City Opera history when he was selected as both conductor and composer at the company’s annual VOX festival of contemporary opera. His original music has been variously described as “bold and atmospheric” (New York Times), “jazzy, energetic, and ingenious” (Boston Globe), and “a compendium of surprises”(Washington Post). E. C. Schirmer publishes his complete catalogue, comprising over 80 titles.
An award-winning organist and improvisateur, Wachner’s solo recital at the Spoleto Festival USA featured an improvised finale that inspired one reviewer to conclude: “This stupefying wizardry was the hit of the recital, and it had to be heard to be believed” (Post and Courier, South Carolina). And as a concert pianist, in his recent Kennedy Center All-Rachmaninoff performance, the Washington Post noted that “Wachner dazzled with some bravura keyboard work, both in the rhapsodic accompaniments to the songs and…in the highly virtuosic transcription of the Dances.”
Wachner’s recordings are with the Chandos, Naxos, Atma Classique, Arsis, Dorian, Musica Omnia, and Titanic labels.
Historical Bio
Born in Hollywood, California, conductor-composer-keyboard artist Julian Wachner began his musical education at age 4 with cello and piano lessons at the University of Southern California, 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 was the youngest winner of the S. Lewis Elmer award having earned both the Associate degree and the Doctoral Fellowship degree from the American Guild of Organists [State University of New York] before completing his formal studies. In 1996, he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University’s School for the Arts where he studied orchestral conducting with David Hoose and composition with his mentor Lukas Foss.
In 1990, at the age of twenty, he was appointed University Organist and Music Director of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel with subsequent faculty positions at the Boston University School of Theology, School for the Arts, Tanglewood Institute and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1996 he was appointed Music Director of the Back Bay Chorale and the Providence Singers and founded the Boston Bach Ensemble, a period instrument orchestra and chamber choir. He quickly became one of New England’s most prominent professional musicians, constantly heralded in the press and musical community for the excellence and variety of his work. In 2001, following this prodigious period of conducting activity, compositional output, solo recitals, public lectures and a weekly NPR program on 90.9FM, Julian Wachner was appointed associate professor of music at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montréal, Québec.
In the summer of 2001, Wachner made his operatic debut stepping in for Grant Llewelyn at the Spoleto Festival USA leading performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. This began an vibrant period of guest conducting invitations; these include recent appearances with The Pittsburgh Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Glimmerglass Opera, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops Orchestra, Portland Symphony, Honolulu Symphony, Music Academy of the West, Calgary Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, Pacific Symphony, The Metropolis Orchestra (Chicago), L’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, Tanglewood Young Artists’ Orchestra, Sioux City Symphony, New Haven Symphony, the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, and the Toronto Operetta Company. In 2008, following an extensive international search process, Julian Wachner was appointed the 3rd music director of the Grammy award winning Washington Chorus in residence at the Kennedy Center.
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 du Grand Montréal (Triptych for Organ and Large Orchestra - 2004), Cornell University's Glee Club (4 Scenes from the Rubayat - 2005), and his first opera, Evangeline Revisited, for Opera McGill in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. 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), 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 Grand Montreal in 2008. His complete choral works are currently being recorded and produced by Naxos with the Elora Festival Singers and Noel Edison, conductor.
As an organist and improvisateur, Wachner has appeared throughout North America including such prestigious venues as Methuen Memorial Hall, Trinity Church Copley Square, AGO Conventions in New York City, Dallas and South Carolina, the Organ Historical Society's Boston Convention, St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal and as part of the first-place winning team of the Festival Orgue et Couleur's inaugural improvisation competition in Quebec. At the Spoleto Festival in 2003, his improvised finale at his solo intermezzo led one reviewer to report that “this stupefying wizardry was the hit of the recital, and it had to be heard to be believed.” In 2006, he was honored with the invitation to conduct the opening orchestral concert of the American Guild of Organists' Biennial National Convention in Chicago where he directed concerti by Thierry Escaich, Aaron David Miller, and Richard Proulx, in addition to presenting the world premiere of his own Triptych for Organ and Large Orchestra. He returns to direct performances at the 2010 Convention in Washington D.C. Also a collaborative pianist, Julian Wachner has twice toured South America with countertenor Daniel Taylor and the Theatre of Early Music, and coaches and performs with singers and instrumentalists on a regular basis.
Dedicated to 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. From 2001 to 2007 Wachner was chair of the Choral Area of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and was acting director of Opera McGill from 2005-2007, with whom he currently serves as Principal Conductor. In 2008 he was appointed Music Director of The Washington Chorus.
