WSO PERCUSSION
TIMPANI
Ralph O’Connor, Principal
PERCUSSION
Julian Jeun, Principal
Timothy Francom
Windsor native Julian Jeun was attending F.J. Brennan High School when he became the first co-op student to work with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. He shadowed then Music Director, Susan Haig, the Executive Director, Production Manager, and Librarian witnessing the inner workings of an orchestra. His early musical traning came in the form of private lessons, high school ensembles, the United States Collegiate Wind Band, Scarlet Brigade Concert and Marching Band, and the Matrix Jazz Orchestra. Somewhat of a late bloomer, it was not until his second year of university that Mr. Jeun first played with an orchestra. In the summers of 1997 and 1998 Julian was a student in the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. In 1997, under the baton of Mario Bernardi, the NYOC toured Canada, and in 1998, under the direction of Kazuyoshi Akiyama, the orchestra toured Europe.
Mr. Jeun completed his studies at McGill University, graduating with a bachelors of music with distinction in performance. His teachers were Pierre Bluse, D’Arcy Gray and Andrei Malashenko (Principal Timpani, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal). While at McGill he performed in a landmark live recording and DVD documentary of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 under the baton of Timothy Vernon, now the Music Director of Orchestra London.
Upon the completion of his degree Mr. Jeun returned to Windsor and became a member of the Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra. It was during this time that he began his first entrepreneurial endeavour
launching Percussion Online, a retailer of symphonic percussion instruments, with grant monies won in a national competition for young entrepreneurs.
In 1999 Mr. Jeun returned to Montreal and received a D.E.S.S. from Université du Montréal, where he studied with the Principal Percussionist of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Serge Désgagnes. It was at this time that he performed with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under Charles Dutoit and began playing percussion and drumset with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, under Susan Haig. Immediately upon completion of his studies at Université du Montréal, Mr Jeun won the position of Principal Timpani with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, a position he held from 2000 to 2005. During his tenure, he received his first Juno nomination for the TBSO’s recording (Variations On A Memory) of Jeffery Ryan’s Pangea. While in Thunder Bay Julian was the percussion instructor at Lakehead University.
In 2003 Mr. Jeun was a participant in the inaugaural session of Symphony Orchestra Academy of the Pacific in Powell-River, B.C., studying with Victoria Symphony Orchestra timpanist Bill Linwood.
From September of 2005 to October 2007 Mr. Jeun was the Production Manager for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. While there, he planed and administered two national tours, managed 92 young
musicians and twenty world class faculty members from all over Canada, and produced two double compact disc recordings. It was also in September of 2005 that he won the position of Principal Percussion with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra.
In 2008 Mr. Jeun received his second Juno Nomination via WSO’s recording Peter and the Wolf & Last Minute Lulu. He also plays extra percussion with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and has performed under the baton of Peter Oundjian, Raphael Frühbeck de Burgos and Erik Kunzel. Recordings with the TSO, under the TSO Live! Label (available on iTunes), include Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition, Shostakovitch’s Symphony No. 7 and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Julian Jeun currently resides in Windsor and, in addition to performing and teaching, he pursuing a career in photography, specializing in weddings and portraiture. He also holds the title of universitas procerus dwarfus, an honour he holds in high regard. Julian is forever grateful for the love and support of his parents, three sisters, two brothers and friends.