With an extraordinarily diverse repertoire, innovative programming and charismatic performance style, John Axelrod continues to increase his profile as one of today’s leading conductors. After successful tenures as Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and Theatre and as Music Director of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, in 2011 John Axelrod was appointed Principal Conductor of Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi while in November 2014 he became the new Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla (ROSS).

Since 2001 Axelrod has conducted over one hundred and fifty orchestras around the world, thirty operas and fifty world premieres. Some of his relationships with European orchestras include Berlin’s Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester, the NDR Symphony Hamburg, the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI Torino, the Teatro La Fenice Orchestra in Venice, the Teatro di San Carlo Orchestra in Naples, the RTSI Orchestra in Lugano, the Camerata Salzburg, the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Graz Philharmonic.

John Axelrod’s activities in opera include the new production of Bernstein’s Candide at Théâtre du Châtelet and the Teatro alla Scala, Jonathan Dove’s Flight for the Leipzig Oper, Tristan und Isolde for the Angers-Nantes Opéra and a unique concert performance of Der Kaiser von Atlantis at the Topography of Terror museum in Berlin. For the Lucerne Festival he has conducted Rigoletto, The Rake's Progress, Don Giovanni, Die Dreigroschenoper, Falstaff and Idomeneo. In 2014 he conducted Eugene Onegin at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and he opened the Spoleto Festival with Erwartung, La Dame de Monte Carlo and La Mort de Cléopâtre.

Upcoming productions include the new production of Bernstein’s Candide and the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Lo specchio magico, both at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and a new production of Kurt Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny at the Opera di Roma.

Axelrod is actively committed to working with young professional musicians, having toured with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra to the Salzburg Festival, with the Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Italy, the Accademia della Scala to Muscat, the Junge Norddeutsche Philharmonie in Germany, the Sinfonia Iuventus in Poland and the Wiener Jeunesse Orchester in Austria. Axelrod has recorded core and contemporary repertoire for such labels as Sony Classical, Warner Classics, Ondine, Universal, Naïve and Nimbus. Axelrod’s most recent release was a cycle of Brahms’ Symphonies with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi and accompanying Clara Schumann lieder entitled Brahms Beloved on Telarc.

Axelrod graduated in 1988 from Harvard University. Trained by and in the tradition of Leonard Bernstein, he also studied with the American Symphony Orchestra League conductors program and at the St Petersburg Conservatoire under Ilya Musin.