Russell Ger
Concert Orchestra Conductor
Russell Ger is a young Australian conductor based in New York. His broad repertoire spans orchestral, operatic, and choral music, which he has conducted across North America and his home country.
In September of 2016, Mr. Ger began his tenure as the new Music Director of the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra in upstate New York. Here he will conduct several subscription concerts each season, in addition to Family and Pops concerts.
As the 2014 recipient of the prestigious Brian Stacey Memorial Trust Award for Emerging Australian Conductors, Mr. Ger became a candidate for the position of Assistant Conductor with the Queensland Symphony in Australia. Mr. Ger was also among a select group invited to conduct a special showcase with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
In 2013, Mr. Ger was one of four Finalists from around the world for the prestigious 2nd International Chicago Symphony Orchestra Sir Georg Solti Conducting Apprenticeship. The audition took place before a panel of experts headed by the great mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, and Chicago Symphony music director Riccardo Muti.
Mr. Ger has toured North America with renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, promoting a recording for Sony of Jewish art-music made in 2012. Performances took place at the Hollywood Bowl with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic before an audience of 10,000, and at the Barclays Center arena in New York for an audience of 6,000. The tour also drew capacity houses at the Boca Raton Arts Festival, Boston Celebrity Series at Symphony Hall, Ravinia Festival in Chicago, Long Island, and Toronto. A PBS Special aired in 2014.
Mr. Ger is a proud alumnus of Symphony Australia, the leading conductor-training program in the country. Over the course of four years from 2004-08, Mr. Ger had the opportunity to receive instruction from notable international teachers while working with Australia’s top orchestras. Weeklong residencies were maintained several times a year with the Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.
One of the highlights of Mr. Ger’s early career came in 2003 when he conducted the Finale from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Sydney Opera House. On this occasion, he led a massed community chorus and an orchestra comprising Sydney Symphony and Australian Opera-Ballet Orchestra members. The next year he repeated the performance at the Sydney Convention Center for an audience exceeding 3,000.
Mr. Ger is committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians. As a conductor for the Norwalk Youth Symphony in Connecticut, he works with young musicians on a regular basis. He additionally serves as Music Director of the Park East Synagogue in New York City, where he works with the most highly esteemed living Cantor, Yitzchak Meir Helfgot. Mr. Ger is married to Kirsten Hicks, a wonderful Australian woman whom he met in NYC where they both reside.