Jan Wagner

Position:

Professor Emeritus, Conducting

Email: jwagner@cesametal.net

Employed Since:

2002–2023

Applied Area(s):

Orchestral Conducting

Conservatory Professional Highlights:

Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra tour to Spain in March 2014; artistic director and conductor of the Shenandoah Conservatory Performing Arts Festival, Shenandoah Performs, between 2004 and 2008.

Ensemble(s):

Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, Kammermusik Players, Opera

Divisions:

Instrumental

Educational History:

Diploma and Korrepetitions Praxis, Academy of Music in Vienna (Austria)

Professional Highlights:

Jan Wagner, a native of Caracas, Venezuela, launched his professional conducting career after winning First Prize at the 1995 Nicolai Malko International Conductors’ Competition in Denmark. In 2002 he completed a five-year tenure as principal conductor of the Odense Symphony Orchestra in Denmark, which he led in more than 200 performances conducting more than 200 different works both on subscription concerts and on two separate tours to the United States and Spain.

Simultaneous with his appointment in Denmark, Wagner regularly conducted the Danish National Radio Symphony, the Danish Radio Sinfonietta (including two tours to Paris and Sweden), the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic and the Danish Royal Theater as well as most of the principal Danish and Scandinavian orchestras. Other notable orchestras he has worked with include the Royal Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony, the Hannover Radio Symphony, the Halle Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Symphony, the West Australian Symphony (Perth) and the Melbourne Symphony.

In North and South America, Wagner has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Aspen Festival Orchestra and Aspen Chamber Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Opera on a U.S. tour of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” the Philharmonic Orchestra of the U.N.A.M in Mexico City and the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. He has also been a regular guest conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, that country’s national symphony orchestra, since 1998.

In May 2017, Wagner made his conducting debut with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra (ASO) as part of its Masterwork Series and was re-invited to conduct another Masterwork Series concert in April 2018. In April 2022 he made a successful return to the ASO to conduct works by Prokofiev, Mozart and Mendelssohn. Since 2019, Wagner has conducted three consecutive seasons of the Virginia Regional Ballet’s production of “The Nutcracker” at the Ferguson Center for the Arts with the Williamsburg Symphony Orchestra.

Throughout his career Wagner has collaborated with many distinguished artists such as clarinetists Richard Stolzman and Sabine Meyer, singers Anna Larsson, Bo Skovhus and Yvonne Kenny, cellists Ralph Kirshbaum, David Geringas, and Andrés Díaz, violists Nobuko Imai, pianists John Browning, Ivan Moravec, Grigory Sokolov, Andrei Gavrilov, Nikolai Demidenko, Vanessa Perez and John O’Conor, violinists Mark Kaplan, Arve Tellefsen, Kristof Barati and Anne Akiko Meyers, and trumpeters Håkan Hardenberger, Jens Lindemann and Wynton Marsalis.

Contemporary composers with whom Jan Wagner has collaborated include Danish composers Poul Ruders (world premiere performance and recording of his Guitar Concerto), Per Nørgård, Anders Nordentoft, American composers William Bolcom, Kevin Puts, Richard Wilson, Jennifer Higdon, John Corigliano and Joseph Schwantner. The 2014/15 season brought about a collaboration with Wynton Marsalis as part of the world premiere performance of the complete “Blues Symphony” at the Strathmore Music Center with the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (SCSO). In May 2019, the SCSO joined a consortium of selected orchestras to co-commission a concerto for trumpet and orchestra from composer Vivian Fung. A performance took place during the 2021/22 season.
Jan Wagner has also been very active recording for labels such as Denon (Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and Debussy’s “L’apres-midi d’un faune, ”DVD audio), DaCapo (works by Paul von Klenau which received a Danish Grammy nomination), Classico (world premiere of Poulenc’s “Les animaux modele”), Bridge Records (world premiere of Poul Ruders’ Guitar Concerto, works by Ginastera, Villa-Lobos, including the world premiere of Villa-Lobos’ ballet “Emperor Jones,” and Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto), Silverline (Strauss’ “Ein Heldenleben” and “Vier letzte Lieder,” DVD audio) and Danacord (Mussorgsky-Ravel’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”). In 2010, Wagner initiated a long-term project with the Naxos label and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela to launch a new series called “Latin-American Classics” which will feature symphonic works by leading Venezuelan composers from the twentieth century. The first CD featuring works by Evencio Castellanos was released in January 2012.

Wagner currently holds the position of director of orchestral studies and professor of conducting at Shenandoah University where he serves as the artistic director and conductor of the Shenandoah Conservatory Symphony Orchestra (SCSO) with which he has undertaken two international tours to Spain (Zaragoza, Castellón, Murcia and Granada) and Argentina (Córdoba, Paraná, Rosario and Buenos Aires). In May 2023, the SCSO undertakes its third international tour to Argentina with performances in the cities of Buenos Aires, Bariloche, Córdoba and Rosario. He also serves as the music director of the school’s fully staged opera productions.

He is a graduate of the Academy of Music in Vienna, Austria, where he completed his studies with Karl Österreicher and Günther Theuring. He has furthered his studies with Murry Sidlin and Lawrence Foster as a fellow conductor at the Aspen Music Festival and has participated in masterclasses with John Nelson, Leonard Slatkin and James Conlon.

Following his studies, he was the Top Prize Winner at the 1994 Leopold Stokowski International Conducting Competition in New York and was the recipient of the 1994 Conducting Prize at the Aspen Music Festival. He has also served as assistant conductor/vocal coach to John DeMain at Houston Grand Opera, to Lawrence Foster at the Aspen Music Festival, assistant/apprentice conductor under Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra and as assistant/cover conductor to Kurt Masur at the New York Philharmonic.