Full Biography
Canadian Ukrainian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson is the founder and Music Director of the highly regarded Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, formed in response to the Russian invasion and which has toured major cities and festivals in Europe and the United States over the past four summers. As a staunch supporter of Ukrainian liberty, Maestro Wilson performed the Verdi Requiem at the Lviv Opera House in February 2023 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the invasion and she has returned to Ukraine on numerous occasions since then to lead performances in solidarity.
Maestro Wilson created a new performance version of the “Ode to Joy” in Ukrainian for the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s Beethoven Ninth Freedom Tour during the 2023 and 2024 summers. In this version, “Joy” is changed to “Slava,” the Ukrainian word for “Glory,” the rallying cry for Ukrainian victory. The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra’s recording of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony was released by Deutsche Grammophon to commemorate the second anniversary of the invasion. Ms. Wilson conducted the Beethoven Ninth in Warsaw in February, 2025, to commemorate the third anniversary of the invasion. The concert was televised live by ARTE across Europe and on a delayed basis by PBS in the United States.
The orchestra’s most recent tour, the 2025 Resilience Tour, included Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which was also recorded by Deutsche Grammophon for release in the fall of 2025. The album also included Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets’ Suite from The Mothers of Kherson, an opera jointly commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and the Polish National Opera that will be conducted by Ms. Wilson in both houses in upcoming seasons.
In 2024, Ms. Wilson was appointed Music Director of the Kyiv Camerata, Ukraine’s leading chamber orchestra. Ms. Wilson leads the Kyiv Camerata in concerts both inside and outside of Ukraine in the 2025/26 season.
Maestro Wilson’s career as a conductor of opera and symphonic music includes many of the world’s leading opera houses and symphony orchestras. Among the opera companies she has conducted in recent seasons are the Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, The Berlin Staatsoper and the Deutsche Oper. Orchestras she has conducted recently include the New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the MDR Symphonie-Orchestre and the Bruckner Orchestra of Linz.
Highlights of Ms. Wilson’s 2025/26 season include return engagements with the Metropolitan Opera to conduct La Bohème, Opéra national de Paris to conduct Carmen, and the Staatsoper Berlin to conduct Madama Butterfly. She makes her debut at the Santa Fe Opera conducting Eugene Onegin. Ms. Wilson conducts a Verdi and Wagner Gala with the Irish National Opera Orchestra at the Dublin Concert Hall, and performances with the Orchestra national Bordeaux Aquitaine and Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra. Her season concludes with the Summer 2026 Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra tour.
Over a rich and varied career, Maestro Wilson has conducted, amongst many other orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Grant Park Festival Orchestra, the Wiener Kammerorchester, the Hessische Staatsorchester Wiesbaden, the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma, the Wrocław Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, the Prague Philharmonia, the RAI Symphony Orchestra, the Salzburg Mozarteum, the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the Orchestre national d’Ile de France, NDR Radiophilharmonie, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est, Orchestre national Bordeaux Aquitaine, Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, Toronto Symphony and l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.
Maestro Wilson’s career operatic highlights include Carmen, La Bohème and La Traviata at the Royal Ballet and Opera House Covent Garden; Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and La Traviata at the Wiener Staatsoper, Turandot at the Staatsoper Berlin, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Queen of Spades at the Metropolitan Opera, Salome at Houston Grand Opera La Traviata, Madama Butterfly and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the BayerischeStaatsoper, Stolen Happiness at the Lviv National Opera, Madama Butterfly, Elektra and Salome at the Deutsche Oper, Cendrillon at Opéra national de Paris, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and La Traviata at the OpernhausZürich, Don Carlo, Iolanta, Manon Lescaut, Carmen, Tosca, La Fanciulla del West, Jenufa and Aïda at the English National Opera, Rusalka at the Czech National Opera, Rigoletto at the Norwegian National Opera, Der Fliegende Holländer, Carmina Burana, Boris Godunov, and Carmen at the Polish National Opera, Faust at the Washington National Opera, Pique Dame and Tosca at the Latvian National Opera and Madama Butterfly at the Canadian Opera Company. She was the first female conductor to lead an opera at: the Arena di Verona, where she conducted Tosca and Madama Butterfly; the New National Theatre (NNT) Tokyo, where she led Madama Butterfly; and the Opera di Roma, where she conducted Aïda.
Maestro Wilson was raised in Winnipeg, Canada, home of North America’s most concentrated Ukrainian population, where she studied flute, piano, and violin from an early age. While still a student at Juilliard, she assisted Claudio Abbado at the Salzburg Festival and won a fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center. Upon graduating from Juilliard with a masters both in flute and conducting, she was named the Associate Conductor at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
On August 24th2024, Ukrainian Independence Day, Maestro Wilson was awarded the Order of Princess Olga by President Zelensky for her contributions to Ukrainian culture.
She can be found on social media under @kerilynnwilsonmaestro on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and X.
