Maria Kurochkina

Orchestral Conducting | Faculty, The Global Conservatory

Maria Kurochkina is a conductor and educator whose work spans opera and symphonic repertoire. In August 2025, she joined the faculty of Northern Illinois University as assistant professor of music and director of orchestral activities.

Kurochkina holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from Boston University, where she studied with James Burton and William Lumpkin and received a full merit scholarship. Her doctoral dissertation, Preserving Tchaikovsky's Legacy: A Translation and Critical Commentary on Kirill Kondrashin's Interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Symphonies, reflects her research interests in interpretation, Soviet performance traditions and the challenges of translation in specialized musical contexts.

She also earned a Specialist Degree (equivalent to a combined bachelor's and master's) from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she studied with Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Igor Dronov.