Designated “Chicagoan of the Year in Classical Music” (Chicago Tribune) and winner of the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Prize, Vladimir Kulenovic has taken his place as one of the finest and most imaginative conductors of his generation. Hailed as the ‘conductor with an uncommon passion’ by the distinguished Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein, Mr. Kulenovic is currently the seventh Music Director of the Lake Forest Symphony.
During his four year tenure, the Lake Forest Symphony has seen unprecedented growth in its 60 year history, demonstrated by earning critical acclaim, expanding its audience base, its season and budget, as well as recording its first ever commercial CD recordings, scheduled for commercial release in late 2018 on the GRAMMY award-winning Cedille Records label.
Having concluded four seasons as Associate Conductor of the Utah Symphony / Utah Opera, Kulenovic has also served as assistant conductor with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Principal Conductor of the Kyoto International Festival in Japan and Resident Conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic in his native Serbia. His U.S. guest conducting engagements include the symphonies of Alabama, Chicago, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Houston, Illinois, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Knoxville, San Francisco, South Bend, Utah, and Winston-Salem, in addition to the philharmonic orchestras of Naples and Oklahoma City, and the Louisville Orchestra.
Worldwide, Mr. Kulenovic has appeared with the Basque National Orchestra of Spain, Beethoven-Orchester Bonn, Bilkent Symphony, Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Leipziger Symphonie Orchester, Malaysia Philharmonic, Minas Gerais Philharmonic, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Orquesta Filarmónica de Jalisco, Orchestra Sinfonica de España, Orchestra Classica de Santa Cecilia, Romanian State Philharmonic, Slovenia Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony, Zagreb Philharmonic, Macedonian Philharmonic, and the Macedonian National Opera.
Festival appearances include Aspen, Cabrillo, Kuhmo, Round Top, Salzburg Mozarteum, and Verbier and critically acclaimed collaborations include such celebrated artists as Leon Fleisher, Mischa Maisky, Augustin Hadelich, Joaquín Achúcarro, Barry Douglas, Philippe Quint, Joseph Silverstein, Akiko Suwanai, Jean-Frederic Neuburger and Sasha Cooke.
In 2012, Vladimir was awarded the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Fellowship and the position of conducting assistant with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, where he worked closely with his long-time mentor, the late maestro Kurt Masur. He has also served as cover conductor with the Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Baltimore Symphony, and has assisted many illustrious conductors including Bernard Haitink, Zubin Mehta, Thierry Fischer, Sir Andrew Davis, Alan Gilbert, Andrey Boreyko, Marin Alsop and others.
Vladimir Kulenovic holds graduate diplomas in conducting from both The Juilliard School and the Peabody Institute where his teachers were Alan Gilbert, James DePreist and Gustav Meier. He earned a bachelor’s degree in piano performance and a master’s degree in conducting from the Boston Conservatory, where he graduated summa cum laude. Among his numerous awards are the 2012, 2013, and 2014 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Development Grants, Bruno Walter Memorial Award, the Charles Schiff Prize for Excellence at Juilliard as well as the 2nd Grand Prix at the Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Paris. He was one of six top U.S. young conductors chosen by the League of American Orchestras for the 2013 Bruno Walter National Conducting Preview.
Concerts and Tickets
Vladimir Kulenovic conducts a program of Weber, Shostakovich, and Brahms with guest cellist Julian Schwarz on October 14 & 16, 2018.
Vladimir Kulenovic on Social Media
Q & A
Tell us a unique story that has shaped who you are:
My dad was a composer, who occasionally conducted premieres of his pieces, and was sometimes also asked to conduct the remaining pieces on the program. In 1983, he was asked to perform his “Icarus” on a program that also included Stravinsky’s Firebird 1919 Suite. Whilst studying the Stravinsky masterpiece, he had his almost three year old son, yours truly, hanging out next to him. As he left the couch where we were sitting to make coffee, I “stole” his conducting baton and took over the study session! He put on the LP of Firebird and apparently I conducted the whole thing and asked for more! I do not remember this “conducting debut” of mine, but do remember “playing conductor” like this until I was about five years old, at which point I found violin and piano more interesting. I still find violin and piano more interesting, but it seems my first love was the strongest, and I came back to conducting after all. Without question, that particular afternoon shaped my life in an irreversible way, and I have my dad to thank for everything!
Any fun childhood stories that you’d care to share?
Since both of my parents were musicians, I played since before I can remember myself. At the age of five, I was formally enrolled in a special music school, studying piano and violin. I loved the violin so much, that I would literally want to sleep with the instrument, and was that annoying child that would not let it go and always wanted to perform for everybody: neighbors, friends, colleagues of my parents, people on the street, and every dinner party. It was impossible to watch a movie or have quiet time if I was around! So, pretty quickly violin was rationed to me at only certain times of the day, and I was re-routed to piano. Piano was big, heavy, and not something I can take from room to room in constant search of an audience. Slowly, this resulted in me being a pianist, and not a violinist, but my love of the instrument still remains strong. I played all the transcriptions of violin repertoire pieces, like the Bach-Busoni and Brahms versions of the Chaconne, Liszt and Brahms Paganini Etudes and Variations, and more. My life goal is to return to the violin and be able to play the Second Partita of J.S. Bach.
Did you have a childhood hero?
My dad, Vuk Kulenovic
We hear that you like to cook…
Yes.
I fall for the traditional French cuisine: Bouillabaisse, Coq au vin, Bouef Bourguignon. I don’t cook duck because they are too cute. I make my own croissants, bread, pasta and all that. I also cook a Serbian lamb dish called Janjetina ispod sacha. Cooking Serbian food is a second nature, so Burek, Sarma, and other specialties are what I learned from the best – my grandmothers!
What’s on your reading list right now?
Poetry of Wislawa Szymborska, Essays of Milan Kundera, as well as his Unbearable Lightness of Being which I was re-reading recently. I had to recite my grandfather’s Sonnets, so I was reading them too. He was a great author, and his name is Skender Kulenovic. The Inner Game of Tennis, as an audio-book on my drives to work
What music is in your playlist right now?
Not any pieces that I am working on. I am very disciplined to form the sound in my mind’s ear from the score only. I am addicted to Glenn Gould’s Bach. In particular, the Toccatas are incredible and have been something that I was feeding on for years. Anytime I hear a recording of his that I heard thousands of times, it is as captivating as though it is the first time. His playing is a permanent revelation for me.
Any favorite movies?
Oh yes: “Death in Venice” of Visconti. Every single film of Ingmar Bergmann (especially the “Wild Strawberries”), “Stalker” by Andrey Tarkovsky, “Underground” by Emir Kusturica, Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg, all of the Indiana Jones and Star Wars (I know, there is still a child in me!), “La vita è bella” with Roberto Benigni, “Dead Poets Society” with Robin Williams, and many more…
You’re a big tennis player and fan. Any other sports or hobbies?
Scuba and free-diving have been serious life long passions. I grew up on the Adriatic Sea, so I was swimming since the youngest of ages, and training waterpolo. My dad was a professional waterpolo player, who was recruited to the national team after their 1968 Gold Medal, only to quit the sport and pursue musical composition studies less than a year later.
What do you think of “Mozart In The Jungle?”
I haven’t watched so I don’t have an opinion 🙂
What would you do if you weren’t a conductor?
Definitely an educator, which I try to be in spite being a conductor too.
What’s something about your home that you’d bring to Winston-Salem?
Optimism and an open heart!
