Kerry Stratton (1952–2019)

Everyone at Grand Piano was saddened to learn of the passing of conductor Kerry Stratton, who died aged 66 of complications from ALS on Tuesday, 27 August 2019.

In the course of his international career, Kerry conducted orchestras in 35 countries throughout Europe, North America and Asia. Having earned a degree in conducting from McGill University, he later completed graduate studies at the Vienna Conservatory (under Sir Charles Mackerras), the Academia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and L’École Pierre Monteux in the US (with Charles Bruck).

Kerry appeared with The Czech Philharmonic, Budapest Concert Orchestra, Hungarian Chamber Soloists, Prague Chamber Philharmonic, Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic, Slovak Radio Orchestra, Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Prague Radio Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic, Janáček Philharmonic, St Petersburg Camerata, and the Beijing Symphony.

For his services to Czech and Slovak culture, Kerry received the 2000 Masaryk Award and was decorated by the Czech Government in 2007 at Prague’s Cernin Palace with the Gratis Agit Award. Others similarly honoured included former US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright and filmmaker, Miloš Forman.

GP689

GP771

Kerry was a wonderfully positive and enthusiastic musician—conductor, music director, radio personality—and his joy in music lives on in his recordings. We are proud that two Grand Piano releases are among them: the first, of Joachim Raff’s works for piano and orchestra [GP771] with Tra Nguyen; the second, a recording of Edvard Grieg and Helge Evju’s Piano Concertos with Carl Petersson [GP689]. Kerry can be heard talking about this latter recording [c. 01:50—03:50] in the following video link: https://youtu.be/8X6txnH4y5k?t=131