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Jurjen Hempel

Jurjen Hempel is a Dutch Conductor. studied conducting with David Porcelijn and Kenneth Montgomery at the Utrecht Conservatory in Holland, During his studies he was invited to assist Edo de Waart, Hans Vonk and David Robertson. On invitation of Seiji Ozawa, he studied in 1994 at the Tanglewood Conducting Class where he worked with Bernard Haitink and Lorin Maazel.

In may 1996 he was finalist and prizewinner at the first Sibelius Conductors Competition in Helsinki.

In 1996 Jurjen Hempel was appointed Assistant Conductor to Valery Gergiev with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Beside orchestras all the Netherlands he conducts different orchestras abroad like the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In recent years his activities in France has formed an important part of his calendar. He has worked with the orchestras of Bordeaux, Toulon, Poitiers and Amiens. In Paris he worked with Orchestre National Ile de France and Orchestre Lamoureux. In the UK he is a regular guest with BBC Symphony, The Ulster Orchestra as well as BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In November 2012 a crown in his career was the moment when he made his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Important activities in opera area was the performance of Richard Strauss’ Salomé for the Gergiev Festival. As a result of this he was invited to conduct Salomé as well at Gergiev’s Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, being the first Dutch conductor ever in the history of this famous theatre. In the spring of 2004 he has conducted the long-awaited opera Shadowtime by Brian Ferneyhough at the Munich Biennale. Later to be seen in Paris, London and New York. In august of 2005 he made his debut at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His recent opera activities inludes Berlioz’ Damnation de Faust in Limoges and Rolf Liebermannn’s Die Schule der Frauen and Mozart’s Zauberflöte in Bordeaux. At the Opéra de Toulon he has conducted Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serai, Verdi’s Nabucco and Puccini’s Turandot among others.

His reputation as a conductor of contemporary music leads him to work on a regular base with ensembles as London Sinfonietta, the Asko Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, the Schönberg Ensemble and Ensemble Intercontemporain.

He is also Chef-conductor with the Netherlands Youth Orchestra. Jurjen Hempel was appointed as Artistic Director and Music Director at the Joensuu City Orchestra in Finland, starting September 2013. In September 2018 Hempel started his work as Music Director with the Toulon Opéra in France where he had been a regular guest for some years.