Meet our new conductor Kurt Ison

2025

Kurt Ison is one of Australia’s leading organists and organ teachers. He is the President of the Organ Music Society of Sydney. He enjoys an international career as a recitalist, having performed as soloist in some of the world’s most prestigious venues including Notre Dame de Paris, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral London, Washington National Cathedral, St Thomas Fifth Avenue in New York City and the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall. 

 He was educated to post-graduate level at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, attended masterclasses given by leading international teachers such as Professor Michael Radulescu and went on to have private lessons from leading European pedagogues in places such as St Gervais, Paris, Versailles and San Petronio, Bologna.

 Kurt has performed extensively in Australia, having given solo concerts at the Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane Town Halls, St John’s Cathedral Brisbane, and St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne.

 He is the Organist and Organ Teacher at six of Sydney’s leading private schools and also teaches private students. He is equally at home as a church musician and is organist at several churches including Mary Immaculate Waverley, the headquarters of the Franciscan Order in Oceania. 

 Kurt is also a published composer. His choral works have been performed in venues such as The Vatican, St Mark’s, Venice, Nôtre Dame Cathedral, Paris and Aachen Cathedral amongst others. In 2019, his mass for female voices and organ, commissioned by Aachen Cathedral, Germany was premiered both at Aachen and in Sydney by the Cathedral Girls’ Choir.

 Kurt is in demand around Sydney for a variety of professional engagements including for example, guest organist for The Song Company’s Christmas 2021 concert series, organist for the Pacific Opera Studio’s performance of the Mozart Requiem, University graduations, deputising at city churches, corporate events at the Town Hall and weddings and funerals. 

 Kurt has sung in, or directed, choirs since the age of ten.

Kurt was Choral Director at Scots Church, Sydney (starting with a choir of 30) and briefly at Scots Kirk, Mosman and St Giles’, Greenwich where he conducted and rehearsed the large Girls' Choir. At the Scots Church, he conducted the choir for a variety of large occasions such as a television broadcast of Divine Service, a visit from the Governor and visits from various Scottish nobility.

From 1999 until 2004, Kurt studied voice as a baritone with Michael Hissey and then graduated with the LTCL in voice.

He has sung as a soloist on the stage of the Sydney Town Hall, in the crypt of St Mary’s Cathedral and as a chorister in many, many events. He has deputized as a baritone in choirs such as Christchurch St Laurence, St James’ Church, King Street, the choir of St Francis, Paddington, the “Cathedral Singers” and the St Mary’s singers (based at St Mary’s Cathedral).

For three years, Kurt directed a secular community choir at Balmain of around twenty five to thirty. They performed numerous concerts at which he conducted both the choir and a small orchestra of professional string and woodwind players.

Kurt has also relieved other conductors and directed several rehearsals of choirs such as The Jacobeans and the Inner West Chamber Choir.

At MLC School Burwood, Kurt periodically rehearsed the various chamber choirs for upcoming events. In particular, he prepared the MLC Chamber Choir for its 2001 European tour and directed a number of the performances on tour in St Mary of the Angels Basilica, Rome and St Mark’s Venice as well as other venues.

At Waverley, he conducted the parish choir for a number of years. In addition to the parish choir, this has regularly included ensembles of additional professional choristers and instrumentalists for major religious feasts. This saw him conducting excerpts from Schubert and Haydn masses with string orchestra and organ as well as Gregorian chant and polyphonic motets.