The background for this project which will last until 2012 was the internationally striking lack of young, professional conductors. Only a few universities offer a qualified training in which young ambitious musicians are given the chance to be taught by an internationally renowned conductor, how to lead an orchestra.

To avoid that even first-class orchestras and ensembles suffer from a lack of young conductors, the Philharmonia Orchestra London (POL) under the direction of Christoph von Dohnányi (Honorary Conductor for Life), the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) and the Allianz Kulturstiftung had founded an initiative, which enabled the young talents to attend a master course with internationally renowned conductors.

In 2008/2009, the leading tutors had been Esa-Pekka Salonen (Chief Conductor of the POL) and Gustavo Dudamel (Chief Conductor of the Göteborgs Symphonic Orchestra, designated Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2009/2010). Further tutors had been Vladimir Jurowski (Chief Conductor of the LPO), Neeme Järvi (LPO), John Carewe (LPO), Richard Hickox (POL) and Martin Brabbins (POL).

The three young talents Matthew Coorey (Great Britain / Australia), Anna-Maria Helsing (Finland) and Christian Schumann (Germany) had been chosen to participate in the International Conductors' Academy 2008/2009.

These young conductors had been given the chance to spend a year accompanying the rehearsals and concerts of the Philharmonia Orchestra London and to conduct a rehearsal themselves under the auspices of their maestro.

In three intensive rehearsal phases in October 26-31, 2008, February 16-20, 2009 and March 22-25, 2009, they gained lots of precious new experiences.

A concert at the Royal Festival Hall on March 26, 2009, which was open to the public marked the end of the Conductors' Academy. The candidates conducted the Overture, Vespri Siciliani, of Verdi, the Piano Concerto No. 23, K488, of Mozart, and the Symphony No. 4 of Beethoven which they had rehearsed with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The concert featured the well-known pianist Severin von Eckardstein.

Since then some of the former participants in the International Conductors' Academy toured successfully with well known international orchestras and conducted at different internationally renowned music festivals.

The Final Concert of the participants of last year's International Conductors' Academy took place in the Royal Festival Hall in London on June, 13th 2008. The selected young conductors have been: Philippe Bach (Switzerland), Benjamin Northey (Australia) and Jérémie Rhorer (France). The violinist Yossiv Ivanov was supported by the top-level instrumentation of the Philharmonic Orchestra. They performed Maurice Ravel's "Mother Goose", Sergej Prokofiev's Violin Concerto 1 in D and Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in C.