James Judd

His previous directorships include principal guest conductor of the Orchestre National de Lille in France and a groundbreaking fourteen years as music director of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra. He continues to conduct regularly with all of the major British ensembles, including the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the English Chamber Orchestra. He was co-founder of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which he has led on tours throughout the United States, the Far East and Europe. In North and South America he is a frequent and much-admired guest conductor, having appeared with the orchestras of St Louis, Montreal, Cincinnatti, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Seattle, Indianapolis, Utah, Vancouver and Ottawa.

A graduate of London’s Trinity College of Music, James Judd came to international attention as the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, a post he accepted at the invitation of Lorin Maazel. Four years later he returned to Europe after being appointed associate music director of the European Community Youth Orchestra by Claudio Abbado, an ensemble with which he continues to serve as an honorary artistic director. Since that time he has directed the Berlin Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic, conducted in the great concert halls of Europe, including the Salzburg Mozarteum and Vienna’s Musikverein, and made guest appearances with such prestigious ensembles as the Vienna Symphony, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, the Prague Symphony, Orchestre National de France, L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Monte Carlo Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Flemish Radio Orchestra, and the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg.

As an opera conductor, he has appeared with the English National Opera conducting productions of Il trovatore, La traviata, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rigoletto, and Le nozze di Figaro, and at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in Rossini’s La Cenerentola.

During the 2006–07 season, Maestro Judd appeared with the KBS Symphony Seoul, in addition to performances with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. He returned to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and made his début with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.

His other successes include a triumphant return to the Haydn Festival Eisenstadt with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra; guest performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales; and highly acclaimed engagements with the KBS Symphony Orchestra of Seoul, the New Japan Philharmonic Tokyo, the Orchestre National de Lille at the Cite de la Musique Paris, and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.