Maestro Jonathan Pasternack

Jonathan Pasternack is known internationally for his insightful interpretations and exciting performances of the orchestral and operatic repertory.  His recent opportunities have included leading the London Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orkest of the Hague, North Czech Philharmonic and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.  His first recording, leading the London Symphony Orchestra in Béla Bartók’s “Miraculous Mandarin” suite and the Symphony No. 1 by Johannes Brahms, produced by Grammy-award winner Michael Fine, will be released on the Naxos label in 2010.

In April 2009, he made his debut with the Bellevue Opera conducting Puccini’s Tosca.  His other conducting credits for the stage have included productions of The Turn of the Screw, Die Fledermaus, Falstaff, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Les Dialogues des Carmèlites, Cendrillon, L’enfant et les sortilèges, and Hänsel und Gretel, as well as premieres by Swiss composer Robert Clerc in Paris and Seattle-based American composer Gloria Wilson Swisher.

Winner of the Second Prize at the 2002 Cadaques International Conducting Competition in Barcelona, Spain, Mr. Pasternack was assistant conductor under James DePreist with the Oregon Symphony in Portland and also served as resident conductor and managing director of the Icicle Creek Music Center in Leavenworth, Washington.  A strong proponent of music education, he has served as conductor of the Seattle Junior Youth Symphony Orchestra and has taught on the faculties of the University of Washington and Pacific Lutheran University.

Born and raised in New York City, Jonathan Pasternack received his early training in piano and violoncello and entered the Manhattan School of Music on a trombone scholarship at the age of sixteen.  He transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue studies in astronomy and political science and received his first opportunities to conduct while an undergraduate there.  Mr. Pasternack twice attended the Aspen Music School: first, as a conducting seminar student in 1997, and then again in 2003, when he was invited back on a fellowship by David Zinman and performed regularly as an Academy Conductor. 

In 2002, Jonathan Pasternack was invited to participate in the National Conducting Institute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, where he was given the opportunity to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra.  His professional training has also taken him to the Mannes College of Music; Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Italy; Brevard Music Festival; David Oistrakh Festival in Estonia; and the University of Washington School of Music, where he received a doctorate in instrumental conducting.  His principal teachers were Peter Erös, Neeme Järvi, Hans Vonk and Jorma Panula.

.