The NAC announces Kenneth Kiesler as the new Director of the NAC Conductors Programme

December 2005

National Arts Centre

Ottawa, Canada – The National Arts Centre today announced that conductor and conductor-mentor Kenneth Kiesler has been named the new Director of the NAC Conductors Programme starting in the 2006 season. Maestro Kiesler has been Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the University of Michigan School of Music since 1995. He is Music Director of the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra, founder and director of the Conductors Retreat at Medomak, and Conductor Laureate of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Kenneth Kiesler will take over the NAC Conductors Programme from Maestro Jorma Panula who led the programme from its inception in 2001 as part of Canada’s NAC Summer Music Institute.

Pinchas Zukerman, Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Artistic Director of the NAC Summer Music Institute of which the Conductors Programme is a part, said: "I am very happy Kenneth Kiesler has accepted our invitation to join the faculty of Canada’s National Arts Centre Summer Music Institute as Director of the Conductors Programme.  Kenneth’s combined achievements and experience as a conductor and mentor of conductors make him the ideal successor to Maestro Panula.  As a faculty member, Kenneth strengthens an already internationally renowned faculty of the Summer Music Institute. I welcome Kenneth and look forward to working with him in Ottawa."

The NAC Conductors Programme provides a valuable opportunity in Canada for orchestral conductors to develop under the expert guidance of accomplished orchestra leaders. A maximum of eight participants from Canada and abroad participate in ten days of intensive study in a masterclass format. A string quintet and pianist made up of professional musicians and augmented by winds from the NAC Young Artists Programme plays for the conductors. All sessions are videotaped.  Selected sessions will be used as the basis for detailed review led by Maestro Kiesler.   The 10-day programme also includes score study led by Maestro Kiesler. All participants have the opportunity to conduct the National Arts Centre Orchestra in rehearsal, after which some are chosen to conduct the Orchestra in a public concert at the National Arts Centre in Southam Hall. All programme sessions will be open to auditors.

Kenneth Kiesler, in his capacity as Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the School of Music of the University of Michigan, conducts orchestras, choral/orchestral works and opera productions.  He has headed the orchestral conducting program since 1995. The graduate conducting programs attract applicants world-wide and have been consistently ranked first in the nation by US News and World Report. Kiesler’s former students hold prominent positions with major symphony orchestras (including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Victoria and Vancouver Symphonies and others) as well as opera companies and educational institutions. They have won major international competitions including the Maazel/Vilar and Nicolai Malko Competitions. Mr. Kiesler regularly leads conductors’ masterclasses for the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Conductors’ Guild, the Conductors’ Institute, the Manhattan School of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and Oxford University.

In  2002, Kenneth Kiesler was appointed Music Director of New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra. Previously, as Music Director of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra from 1980 to 2000, Kiesler inspired unprecedented artistic development, founded the Illinois Symphony Chorus, founded the Illinois Chamber Orchestra and led its debuts at Alice Tully Hall in 1987 and Carnegie Hall in 1990. The Illinois Symphony and Chamber Orchestras honored Kiesler by naming him Conductor Laureate.

Kiesler has appeared as guest conductor with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, the Chicago Symphony at Orchestra Hall, the Utah, Detroit, New Jersey, Florida, Indianapolis, Memphis, and San Diego Symphonies, as well as the Festivals of Meadowbrook, Skaneateles, Sewanee, Breckenridge, and Aspen. Kiesler has appeared several times with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Haifa Symphony in Israel, the Osaka Philharmonic in Japan, the Puerto Rico Symphony in San Juan, the New Symphony Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the Daejeon Philharmonic and Pusan Symphony among others in Korea.

His operatic conducting includes Bright Sheng’s The Silver River in Singapore, and Britten's Peter Grimes and Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He conducted Appalachian Spring with Martha Graham and Cinderella with the Indianapolis Ballet.

Kiesler has conducted several recordings on the Naxos, Equilibrium and Arabesque labels, with the BBC in London, Third Angle, and the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra. He has led premieres by Stucky, Schuller, Bassett, Johnston, Harlap, Frank, Rush and Brantley, and conducted the first performance of Gershwin’s original jazz-band score of Rhapsody in Blue since 1925, the US Premiere of Mendelssohn’s Third Piano Concerto, and the first performance since 1940 of James P. Johnson’s blues opera, De Organizer.

His teachers included Carlo Maria Giulini, Fiora Contino, Julius Herford, Erich Leinsdorf, John Nelson, and James Wimer. He is included in Jeannine Wagar's book, Conductors in Conversation: Fifteen Contemporary Conductors Discuss Their Lives and