Kuerti began his musical training on the violin and received an honors degree in engineering physics, while continuing to play the violin and serve as concertmaster and soloist with Toronto's Hart House Orchestra. He began conducting in 2000 and moved to Germany the following year to complete his training with Lutz Koehler at the University of Arts Berlin.
South Korea native Shi-Yeon Sung is the winner of the 2006 Sir Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition, as well as a 2004 grant from the Conducting Forum of the German Music Council and winner of the 2004 Female Conductors' Competition in Solingen, Germany. In 2002, Sung gave her conducting debut with Die Zauberfl‹te in Berlin and now regularly directs the opening concert of the Summer Festival Kapfenburg.
She has since collaborated with the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester, the Berliner Symphoniker, the N‹rnberger Symphoniker, and the Brandenburger Symphoniker. Sung earned a master's degree in piano performance from the University of Arts Berlin in 2001 and then began her conducting studies with Rolf Reuter at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin.