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Dr. Kevin F.E. Sütterlin is an internationally sought-after conductor and pedagogue. A dedicated 21st century musician, Sütterlin is passionate about exploring new, non-traditional forms of musical experience. Sütterlin belongs to Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that donates a percentage of their concert fees to organizations they care about. He supports WIRES (Australian Wildlife Rescue) and the Memphis Music Initiative through his performances. Sütterlin is Director of Orchestral Activities and Opera and professor of Instrumental Conducting at Concordia College, where he and his colleagues received two EMMY awards for the nationally broadcast Concordia Christmas Concert productions in 2016. He is music director and conductor of The Concordia Orchestra and Concordia Opera.
Sütterlin is music director and conductor of the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra, one of Wisconsin’s finest professional symphonies, as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Qingdao Concert Hall Symphony Orchestra in China. Furthermore, Sütterlin is artistic director of the Sinfonietta Academy for Historically Informed Performance Practice, and founding co-music director of Sinfonietta Memphis, an ensemble that provides free concerts and educational experiences for Memphis’s most diverse communities. Perhaps the only orchestra in the U.S. with a co-music directorship model, Sinfonietta Memphis’s conductors, Dr. Mathias Elmer and Sütterlin, proudly represent the orchestra’s credo: friendship through music. Dr. Sütterlin also regularly appears with Fargo-Moorhead Opera; he recently conducted the company’s production of Humperdinck’s Hänsel and Gretel to great acclaim, and is looking forward to a return in the spring of 2022, conducting Rossini’s La Cenerentola.
Considering himself a “citizen of the world,” Sütterlin has been building musical bridges across four different continents and has led his ensembles on many successful national and international tours. He has performed and taught across the globe including Austria, China, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the United States. Institutions he has taught at include the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Sichuan Conservatory, The University of Hawaii, Lucerne Conservatory Switzerland, The University of Memphis, and Virginia Tech University. This upcoming season, Sütterlin will guest conduct in China, Namibia, South Africa, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Arizona, Alabama, Virginia, North and South Dakota, and Minnesota.
Sütterlin most recently won the prestigious American Prize 2018-19 with The Concordia Orchestra. He is an awardee of the Hirschmann Foundation scholarship of Switzerland, the Hendrickson Fine Arts Grant, the University of Memphis International Research scholarship, and the University of Memphis Creative Achievement Award.
Championing the music of living as well as historically under-represented composers, Sütterlin commits to diverse programming on every single concert with all of his ensembles. He has commissioned and recorded works of numerous living composers, including René Clausen, Adam Hochstatter, Dan Perttu, Stella Sung, Theresa Martin, Christopher Ducasse, Evan Williams, Scott Hines, Paul Cravens, Russ Peterson, and Doug Harbin, among others. He is one of the leading scholars of the music of late American composer Dominick Argento, sharing a close friendship with him until his death in 2019. Sütterlin’s recording collaborations include numerous CD and DVD productions.
Before joining the faculty at Concordia College in 2016, Sütterlin served The University of Memphis Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music as acting music director of the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra, and Opera. Sütterlin is very passionate about working with young musicians. He holds The Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Endowed Orchestra Chair as director of Orchestral Activities and Conducting Studies of the Lutheran Summer Music Festival and Academy. He has been artistic director of the Northern Valley Youth Orchestras since 2016. He was conductor of the Minnesota All-State Symphony for the 2018-19 season. Since 2017, he conducted the North Dakota State Orchestra Festival, the Tennessee All-West Symphony Orchestra, Texas El Paso All-Region Symphony, South Dakota All-State Orchestra, and the Thurgau National Youth Symphony (Switzerland), among others. From 2011 until 2018, he served on the board of directors of the Zurich Music Association Switzerland, re-designing training curricula for both amateur as well as professional musicians that fit the needs of the 21st century. Sütterlin further serves on the board of the Miller Family Music Education Scholarship through the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region.
Sütterlin received his doctorate and master’s degrees in orchestral conducting from The University of Memphis and a bachelor’s degree in conducting from the Hochschule Luzern – Musik (Switzerland). In his free time, Sütterlin loves to spend time with his partner, April, and their three cats. He loves traveling and learning from different cultures. The introvert’s secret life goal is to one day own a lighthouse in which he could get stuck during high tides and study scores while listening to the crashing waves.
