Conductor

Richard Pontzious
Artistic Director & Conductor

Richard Pontzious founded the Asian Youth Orchestra in 1987 with the distinguished violinist and conductor, Yehudi Menuhin. Since then, he has devoted his professional life to the Asian Youth Orchestra.

In 2000, he received the Bronze Bauhina Star from the Hong Kong Government for his contribution to music and the arts.

James Judd
Principal Conductor

Named principal conductor of the Asian Youth Orchestra following his enormously successful debut last summer, the British-born conductor James Judd is Music Director Emeritus of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre National de Lille.

A graduate of London's Trinity College of Music, James Judd came to international attention as the Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, a post he accepted at the invitation of Lorin Maazel. Four years later he returned to Europe after being appointed Associate Music Director of the European Community Youth Orchestra by Claudio Abbado, an ensemble with which he continues to serve as an honorary Artistic Director. Since that time he has directed the Berlin Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic, conducted in the great concert halls of Europe, including the Salzburg Mozarteum and Vienna's Musikverein, and made guest appearances with such prestigious ensembles as the Vienna Symphony, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, the Prague Symphony, Orchestre National de France, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Monte Carlo Symphony Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Flemish Radio Orchestra, and the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg.

As an opera conductor, he has appeared with the English National Opera and at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival. He continues to conduct all the major British ensembles, and was co-founder of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which he has led on tours throughout the United States, the Far East and Europe. In North and South America he is a frequent and much-admired guest conductor, having appeared with the orchestras of St Louis, Montreal, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Indianapolis, Utah, Vancouver and Ottawa, and for fourteen years served as Music Director of the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra, one of America's orchestral success stories.