James Judd - Patron
James Judd was Music Director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra from 1999 to 2007, when Opus Music Director Dr Peter Walls was on the Board and then Chief Executive at the time. They became good friends, which they have been ever since. It was on the basis of this friendship that Peter asked James if he would become the patron of Opus Orchestra. There was also an open invitation for him to conduct a series of concerts with Opus but the only dates that ever worked were for a Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival Concert (with Deborah Wai-Kapohe as soloist) in around 2009. James and his family (who have permanent residency status) are relocating to Aotearoa/New Zealand from Florida very soon – so opportunities for him to conduct Opus in the future will increase. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Waikato shortly around the same time that he became our Patron.
British-born James Judd came to international attention as Lorin Maazel’s Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. Four years later Claudio Abbado appointed him Associate Music Director of the European Community Youth Orchestra. Since then, he has led the Berlin Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestras; he has conducted in the great concert halls of Europe, including Salzburg’s Mozarteum and Vienna’s Musikverein; and made guest appearances with the Vienna Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Prague Symphony, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Monte Carlo Symphony, the Brussels Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Japan’s NHK Orchestra and the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg. He has conducted the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He was co-founder of and toured extensively with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. In North America, he is a frequent guest conductor with many major orchestras.
James Judd’s many directorships include 16 years with the Florida Philharmonic, principal guest conductorships with the Asian Youth Orchestra, France’s Orchestre National de Lille, the Israel Symphony, New York’s Little Orchestra Society, the Slovak Philharmonic and he is currently Music Director of Korea’s Daejeon Philharmonic. Inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema, he founded the Miami Music Project in Florida, providing education and performance opportunities for hundreds of children, and has led the orchestras of the Juilliard School, Curtis Institute, Manhattan School of Music, London’s Guildhall School and Trinity College, Aspen Music Festival and the national youth orchestras of Australia and New Zealand.
His extensive discography of works by Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin and Mahler appears on the Naxos, Decca, EMI, Gramola and Philips labels.
www.jamesjudd.net
Photo credit: Miguel Alonso