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| Joshua Weilerstein conducting the BBC Philharmonic in Dvorak’s New World Symphony in April 2026 |
Hot on the heels of John Storgårds, (chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic until September 2028), launching his first season as musical director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra [see my article] comes the news of the appointment of Joshua Weilerstein as the BBC Philharmonic‘s next chief conductor.
Weilerstein is music director of the Orchestre National de Lille, and will conclude his tenure as chief conductor of the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra at the end of the 2027/28 season. His relationship with the BBC Philharmonic has developed through performances in Manchester and at the BBC Proms. His 2025 BBC Proms appearance with the orchestra included clarinet concertos by Copland and Artie Shaw alongside French composer Elsa Barraine’s Second Symphony (which was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1938) and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. In April this year he conducted the orchestra in Manchester in a programme that included Duke Ellington’s Harlem, and Soviet Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin’s Fourth Piano Concerto (with Frank Dupree) alongside Dvorak.
Born in 1987 to a musical family, Joshua Weilerstein’s father was the founding first violinist of the Cleveland Quartet. Joshua Weilerstein studied violin and conducting at the New England Conservatory of Music, and his conducting mentors have included Hugh Wolff. Winning the First Prize (and Audience Prize) at the 2009 Malko Competition for Young Conductors in Copenhagen, he became the youngest first prize winner in the history of the competition. He launched the Sticky Notes podcast in 2017.
