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Conductor, Pianist, Producer

ABOUT JONATHAN

"Jonathan Palmer Lakeland (conductor) unleashed a telling, intoxicating sound 
with the Wiener Kammerorchester."
 

December, 2021 - Merkur (Vienna)

The multifaceted British-American musician Jonathan Palmer Lakeland is a conductor, pianist/vocal coach, and producer working globally in the classical music and opera industries.

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As a conductor, Jonathan has worked regularly for opera companies in Europe and North America. In May 2024, Jonathan led the debut of a new adaptation of Bizet's Carmen, featuring additional music by GRAMMY-Award winning composer Andrew Yee, in a production premiered at the Schauspielhaus Zurich (featuring Mezzo-Soprano Katia Ledoux and Tenor Ryan Capozzo and conceived by Wu Tsang and Moved by the Motion).  In 2022, he made his Vienna opera conducting debut with the Austrian premiere of Tobias Picker's Therese Raquin at Theatre an der Wien, where he also worked prevoiusly as a Studienleiter and Repetiteur. In the summer of 2018, Jonathan held the Billy Joel Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Festival, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. While a fellow, Jonathan served as assistant conductor of Leonard Bernstein's opera "A Quiet Place", which was part of Tanglewood's celebration of the Bernstein centenary. He also performed extensively as a collaborative pianist at the Festival, while being mentored by musicians such as Roger Vignoles, Dawn Upshaw, Stephanie Blythe, and Peter Serkin, among others.

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As a vocal coach, Jonathan has prepared singers for recordings, broadcasts, and performances with opera houses including: the Royal Opera House, the Metropolitan Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper, Dutch National Opera, Glyndebourne, Opera National de Paris, and the Bayerisches Staatsoper. In addition to his freelance work, Jonathan is the Associate Director and Vocal Coach at the Georg Solti Accademia in Italy. As one of the directors of the Accademia, Jonathan teaches alongside the GSA's artistic director Jonathan Papp, as well as other extraodindary musicians including Maestro Richard Bonynge, Angela Gheorghiu, Barbara Frittoli, Carlo Rizzi, and more.

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As a pianist, Jonathan has performed in recitals with singers including Aigul Akhmetshina, Dame Felicity Lott, Inna Kalugina, Anush Hovhannisyan, Claire Barnett-Jones, Olivia Warburton, and many others. He has performed at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Salle Cortot (Paris), Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), the Oxford Lieder Festival, and the Leeds Lieder Festival. Jonathan has appeared on a number of discs, including as the piano soloist in Paul Mealor's Stabat Mater on the disc entitled "Serenity", and as the piano soloist on Living Voices, a disc of the works of James Whitbourn.​

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Equally passionate about supporting his fellow musicians, Jonathan has produced classical music recordings, performances, and events for musicians and organizations around the world, including: the University of Oxford, Naxos, Westminster Choir College, and others. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music, Georg Solti Accademia, Tanglewood Music Center, and Westminster Choir College.

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