Keri-Lynn Wilson

Keri-Lynn Wilson’s career as a conductor spans more than twenty years, and includes engagements at both opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper and Metropolitan Opera, and with orchestras including the LA Phil, and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Most recently, her idea of defending Ukraine through music resulted in the creation of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, an ensemble composed of leading Ukrainian musicians from inside the embattled country, as well as recent refugees and Ukrainian members of European orchestras. In July and August 2022, led by Ms. Wilson, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra toured across Europe, performing at the BBC Proms in London, the Edinburgh Festival, the Les Chorégies d’Orange festival in France, Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park and the Kennedy Center among other venues.

Other highlights of Ms. Wilson’s 2022/23 season include her return to Covent Garden, conducting La Traviata; and performances with Tokyo’s NHK Orchestra, the Hessische Staatsorchester Wiesbaden, the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, the Wrocław Philharmonic, Orchestre national Bordeaux Aquitaine, and the Lithuanian National Orchestra. She returns to her alma mater, Juilliard, to conduct the double bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi and to the Opéra de Montréal to conduct Madama Butterfly in the spring.

Over a rich and varied career, Ms. Wilson has conducted, amongst many other orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the San Francisco Symphony, the Wiener Kammerorchester, the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz, the Prague Philharmonia, the RAI Symphony Orchestra, the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Orchestre national d’Ile de France, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Toronto Symphony and l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal.

Ms. Wilson’s career operatic highlights include Carmen at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and La Traviata at the Wiener Staatsoper, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Madama Butterfly at the Deutsche Oper, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and La Traviata at the Opernhaus Zürich, Don Carlo, Iolanta, Manon Lescaut, Carmen, Tosca, and La traviata at the Bolshoi Theatre, La Fanciulla del West and Aïda at the English National Opera, Rusalka at the Czech National Opera, Rigoletto at the Norwegian National Opera, Der Fliegende Holländer, Carmina Burana, Boris Godunov, and Carmen at the Polish National Opera, Faust at the Washington National Opera, Pique Dame and Tosca at the Latvian National Opera and Madama Butterfly at the Canadian Opera Company. She was the first female conductor to lead an opera at: the Arena di Verona, where she conducted Tosca and Madama Butterfly; the New National Theatre (NNT) Tokyo, where she led Madama Butterfly; and the Opera di Roma, where she conducted Aïda.

Of partial Ukrainian descent, Ms. Wilson was raised in Winnipeg, Canada, home of North America’s most concentrated Ukrainian population, where she studied flute, piano, and violin from an early age. While still a student at Juilliard, she assisted Claudio Abbado at the Salzburg Festival, and won a fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center. Upon graduating from Juilliard with a masters both in flute and conducting, she was named the Associate Conductor at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.