Andrew Koehler, Department Chair

Andrew Koehler is currently the music director of the Kalamazoo Philharmonia, which he leads as part of his position as an associate professor of music at Kalamazoo College. His innovative and thoughtful programming there has been honored with the American Prize Vytautas Marijosius Memorial Award in Orchestral Programming. He holds concurrent posts as music director of the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra, one of the nation’s oldest youth orchestras, and as the cover conductor and recurring guest conductor of the West Michigan Symphony Orchestra. He also organizes and conducts concerts with the Arcato Chamber Ensemble, which he founded and which is made up of greater Kalamazoo’s finest professional musicians. The group’s premiere performance was hailed as “…exceptional under his baton” by the Kalamazoo Gazette. Through these ensembles, he has collaborated with leading artists such as Danielle Belen, Aaron Dworkin, Alon Goldstein, Zlatomir Fung, Rachel Barton Pine, Amit Peled, and Midori. His artistic leadership has been recently recognized with the Community Medal of Arts, given by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo as a “lifetime achievement award” for an artist of any discipline who has made “a tremendous impact on [the] community.”

He is active as a guest conductor close to home and throughout the world. In past seasons, he has appeared with the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra musicians; with the Lyatoshynsky Chamber Orchestra in Kyiv, Ukraine; the Ruse Philharmonic in Bulgaria; the St. Cloud Symphony in Minnesota; the Festival South Chamber Orchestra in Mississippi; and the Moldovan National Youth Orchestra, a professional group of recent conservatory graduates. An album of orchestral music by contemporary composer Steven Holochwost, recorded with the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra for the Albany label, was released in 2024. He has additionally led ensembles under the auspices of the Aspen Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Cabrillo Festival for Contemporary Music, the 2006 Vakhtang Jordania International Conducting Competition (where he advanced to the final round and won the audience favorite prize), and the 9th Grzegorz Fitelberg International Conductor’s Competition in Katowice, Poland (where he won First Distinction and the Youth Jury Prize). Previous music directorships include the University Symphony Orchestra at Western Michigan University’s School of Music, the Chamber Orchestra of the University of Chicago, and the Akademisches Sinfonie-Orchester of Vienna, Austria.

Born in Philadelphia to Ukrainian parents, Andrew began his musical studies on the violin at the age of five. He is a graduate of Yale College, where he completed a B.A. in Music and German Studies (graduating with honors and distinction in both majors). During his time there, he served as assistant conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and won the Seldin Memorial Prize in Music. He holds a certificate in conducting from the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, where he studied for two years as a Fulbright scholar, as well as a Masters degree from Northwestern University. His principal teachers have been Victor Yampolsky and Leopold Hager; he has additionally worked with David Zinman, Jorma Panula, Neeme Järvi, and Marin Alsop, among others. He makes his home in Kalamazoo, MI, with his wife Sorina, originally from Moldova, and their son, Theo.