Kalamazoo Gazette: Philharmonia music director wins conducting prize

The musical director of the Kalamazoo Philharmonia and an associate professor of music at Kalamazoo College, Andrew Koehler, recently placed fourth in the Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competition for Conductors — the highest showing by an American — winning a $13,353 prize and the chance to return to Poland this year as a guest conductor. The Kalamazoo Gazette reports that to compete, he had to learn 18 symphonic scores so well that he could recreate them leading an orchestra of musicians with whom he’d never worked and for whom English was by no means a first language. 

 

Excerpt: “When we arrived, we had to be prepared to conduct six different pieces before each round. We would draw lots to find out which two pieces of these six we’d be conducting.”

 

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