Assistant Conductor
Elizabeth Ring and William Gwinn Mather Endowed Chair
The Cleveland Orchestra

Music Director
Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra


The 2012-13 season marks James Feddeck's fourth year as assistant conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra and music director of the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra.  He made his Cleveland Orchestra debut in August 2009.  He assists Franz Welser-Möst in the preparation of Cleveland Orchestra performances, opera productions, recording projects, and tours. In March 2011, he replaced Welser-Möst at the last minute in the Zürich Opera production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni performed at Severance Hall.  He has also led a number of new community initiatives including Cleveland Orchestra collaborative performances with the Cleveland Museum of Art and Cleveland Play House. In June 2012, he led the Youth Orchestra on its first international tour, with performances in the Czech Republic and Austria.

In the United States, Mr. Feddeck has guest conducted the orchestras of Atlanta, Charleston, Charlotte (with soloist Yo-Yo Ma), Grand Rapids, Memphis, Omaha, St. Louis, San Diego, and Toledo as well as perfomances with the Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra (Ballet Across America Festival) and Aspen Music Festival.  In April 2010, he made his European debut with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, resulting from his participation in a masterclass with David Zinman.  He makes his Canadian debut in 2013 with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec. 

Before his appointment in Cleveland, Mr. Feddeck was assistant conductor of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra for two seasons.  He was a conducting fellow for three summers at the Aspen Music Festival as a protégé of David Zinman, where he received the Robert J. Harth Conductor Prize and the Aspen Conducting Prize and later served as assistant conductor there.  He was the unanimous winner of the Sixth Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition as the youngest participant (at age twenty-two).  The Georg Solti Foundation U.S. awarded him a Career Assistance Grant, a new prize for young conductors in the United States.

An accomplished organist, James Feddeck has performed recitals throughout North America and Europe and has been featured on the North American radio program Pipedreams.  As an oboist, he has a special interest in new music and has commissioned works including Daniel Pinkham’s Oboe Quartet.  With his interest in early music, he regularly leads orchestras from the keyboard.

Mr. Feddeck’s musical training is unusually diverse.  He was admitted to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in four areas:  piano, oboe, organ, and conducting.  At Oberlin, he led his first operatic production, of Mozart’s Così fan tutte.  In September 2010, Oberlin College awarded him its first Outstanding Young Alumni Award for professional achievement and contributions to society, the college’s highest distinction to alumni of his generation.