Guest ArtistsCourtney Lewis, conductor

With clear artistic vision, subtle musicality and innovative programming, Courtney Lewis has established himself as one of his generation’s most talented conductors. The 2018-19 season will mark his fourth as music director of the Jacksonville Symphony.

In June 2018, the Kennedy Center and Washington Performing Arts announced that Mr. Lewis and the Jacksonville Symphony will be one of four orchestras invited to participate in 2020 “SHIFT: A Festival of American Orchestras.” SHIFT celebrates the vitality, identity and extraordinary artistry of orchestras and chamber orchestras by creating an immersive festival experience in the nation's capital. In the summer of 2018 Courtney Lewis led the Australian Youth Orchestra alongside the 2016 Sydney International Piano Competition Winner, Audrey Gugnin, and embarked on tour with the Ulster Youth Orchestra through Vienna, Bratislava and Belfast. During the 2018-19 season Mr. Lewis will lead the Minnesota Opera in their returning production of Silent Night by composer Kevin Puts.

Mr. Lewis’s previous seasons in Jacksonville have featured an expanded repertoire including Mahler and Sibelius cycles, Thomas Adès’s Asyla, Ligeti’s Piano Concerto and Timo Andres’s The Blind Banister, while raising the caliber of guest artists with performances by violinist Anthony Marwood and pianists Lang Lang, Inon Barnatan and Jonathan Biss. In addition to initiating the return of opera productions with Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in 2017, the 2017-18 season featured Renée Fleming at the annual Gala, and Christine Brewer with Jay Hunter Morris performing selections from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.

Since his debut in November 2008 with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Lewis has appeared with the Atlanta Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Washington National Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Houston Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and Ulster Orchestra, among others.

As a young conductor, Courtney Lewis served as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, and Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

From 2008 to 2014 Mr. Lewis was the music director of Boston’s acclaimed Discovery Ensemble, a chamber orchestra dedicated not only to giving concerts of contemporary and established repertoire at the highest level of musical and technical excellence, but also bringing live music into the least privileged parts of Boston with workshops in local schools.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Courtney Lewis read music at the University of Cambridge, during which time he studied composition with Robin Holloway and clarinet with Dame Thea King. After completing a master’s degree with a focus on the late music of György Ligeti, he attended the Royal Northern College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Mark Elder and Clark Rundell.