"John Axelrod is an extremely imaginative and dynamic musician whose rich musicological training and historical intuition combine with intellectual energy and charismatic enthusiasm for people and life to produce penetrating, rigorous, and richly characterized performances."

Remy Franck, Pizzicato

With over a quarter of a century of experience conducting nearly 200 orchestras around the world, John Axelrod has established a visible profile as one of today's most important international conductors. His extraordinarily diverse repertoire, ranging from core classics, both orchestral and operatic, to contemporary and crossover, his innovative programming themes, musical depth, and charismatic style of interpretation have been widely praised and recognized by audiences and critics alike. In 2020, Maestro Axelrod received the Special Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards for his outstanding contributions and performances.

The 2023–2024 season begins with two important events in his career: As a newly naturalized Swiss citizen, Maestro Axelrod was appointed music director of the Swiss National Orchestra in August 2023, with a government-approved mission statement committed to promoting the excellence of Swiss musicians and composers through tours, recordings, and special projects. And in September 2023 comes an exceptionally special recording with the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra, released on Orchid Classics and distributed by Naxos, featuring the two versions of Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 4, Op. 120. Entitled Schumann 41/51: Florestan and Eusebius, Maestro Axelrod explores how Robert Schumann's bipolar disorder influenced the original and revised versions of this beloved work, providing a compelling reason for both to be released on the same recording for the first time in recorded history.

Maestro Axelrod continues his decade-long love affair with Japan, returning in October and November this year to the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, the Kanazawa Orchestra Ensemble, and the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra, and making his debut with the Sendai Philharmonic to perform "The Samurai of Seville," a double concerto for flamenco guitar, Japanese koto, and narrator in Japanese and Spanish, composed by José Maria Gallardo del Rey and based on John J. Healey's novel about the historic 1615 journey of 12 samurai from Sendai to Seville. Maestro Axelrod commissioned the work in 2019 and premiered it in 2021 with the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, with which he was principal guest conductor. Maestro Axelrod will also teach a conducting masterclass at the Tokyo Conservatory, continuing his absolute commitment to educating and developing the next generation of conductors and young musicians.

In 2020, during the pandemic, Maestro Axelrod created CMO: Conductors Masterclass Online, and from September to December 2023 he will present a series of online masterclasses, Great Maestros Masterclass Online, with great maestros such as Leonard Slatkin and Frédéric Chaslin, with more confirmed for 2024. In July 2024, Maestro Axelrod will once again, for the third time, be the president of the jury of the Bucharest International Music Institute Masterclass and International Competition for Conductors.

Maestro Axelrod also returns twice to open the Romanian Radio Orchestra's 23-24 season with an all-Rachmaninov program and again in February with Brahms, and continues his longstanding relationship with the Belgrade Philharmonic, also returning twice this season with Bartok and Korngold. Other highlights of the coming season include his annual return to the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano in January 2024, where he was principal guest conductor, with Stravinsky's complete ballet The Firebird, and as conductor of the RAI Pops with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Turin in June. Other important engagements include his debut with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra on tour in October 2023 in Hanoi and in Israel in January 2024, and with the Wallonian Chamber Orchestra in February, as well as returns to the orchestras of South Holland, Cagliari, and Palermo, among others.

Among his many other titles, Maestro Axelrod was unanimously elected in 2022 as principal conductor of the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra, with a unique contract for an indefinite period. From 2018 to 2023, Maestro Axelrod became principal guest conductor of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra. From 2014 to 2020, Maestro Axelrod was artistic and musical director of the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla. Other notable positions include: principal guest conductor of the Milan Symphony Orchestra from 2011 to 2018, principal conductor of the Pacific Music Festival from 2016 to 2018, music director of NHK Jazz at the Metropolitan Theater from 2014 to 2016, music director of l'Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire from 2009 to 2013, music director of the "Hollywood in Vienna" concert series with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2011, music director and chief conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and Theater from 2004 to 2009, as principal conductor of Sinfonietta Cracovia from 2001 to 2009, and as founder and artistic director of OrchestraX in his hometown of Houston from 1997 to 2003.