Michael Wendeberg

Michael Wendeberg’s interpretation was gripping, with sharp and accurate dotted notes and impactful climaxes, yet also with room for rest and contemplation.
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 19/2/2020

Classical repertoire – from Bach to Boulez – comes to conductor and pianist Michael Wendeberg with just as much ease as his dedicated work with new music. In 2020/21 and 2021/22 he acted as Chief Conductor Opera at the Bühnen Halle (Saale), where he held the position of “Erster Kapellmeister” from 2016 until 2023. Most recently he conducted first performances of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and Paderewski‘s Manru among others.

Michael Wendeberg will start the 2024/25 season at the Future Lab of the Klangspuren Schwaz festival before conducting Schönberg's 1st Chamber Symphony and Berg's Chamber Concerto with the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble and Pierre-Laurent Aimard as soloist. With the Ensemble Modern, he will be a guest in the Happy New Ears series in Frankfurt and at the Offspring Festival in Prague. He will also be conducting the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the Boulez Ensemble in Berlin. 

In recent seasons, Michael Wendeberg made his debuts with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra with Debussy's Jeux and the world premiere of Isabel Mundry's Viola Concerto with Nils Mönkemeyer as well as at the Frankfurt Opera with the world premiere of Vito Žuraj's Blühen, combined with a portrait concert of the composer with the Ensemble Modern. He also returned to the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra as part of the AFEKT Festival. Further concerts have taken him to Birmingham, Bremen and Helsinki. He stood in for Daniel Barenboim at both the piano and the conductor's desk in concerts with works by Mozart, Boulez and Manoury with the Boulez Ensemble in Berlin and at the Philharmonie in Paris. He conducted a project with Simon Steen-Andersen and the WDR Symphony Orchestra in the ‘Musik der Zeit’ series in Cologne.

Michael Wendeberg has conducted renowned orchestras and ensembles including the Staatskapelle Berlin, WDR Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra Ljubljana, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, Remix Ensemble Porto, Ensemble intercontemporain, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the Basel Sinfonietta. He has made guest appearances at the Lucerne Festival, Munich Biennale, Beethovenfest Bonn, Bregenz Festival, Venice Biennale, ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Ultraschall Berlin Festival, Acht Brücken Festival Cologne and Klangspuren Schwaz as well as at Wien Modern. He served as Music Director of the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva from 2011 to 2018.

Michael Wendeberg’s opera repertoire ranges from Handel's Orlando to Mozart, Beethoven, Donizetti, Verdi, Bizet, Puccini, Strauss, Wagner, and Britten, and includes numerous world premieres. In 2017 he returned to the Staatsoper Berlin for performances of Die Zauberflöte and for a new production of Aribert Reimann's Gespenstersonate. In 2022 he gave his debut at the Semperoper Dresden with the world premiere of Torsten Rasch’s Die andere Frau. In Halle, he conducted Beethoven’s Fidelio, Verdi’s Aida, Puccini’s Tosca, as well as the premieres of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, followed by a new production of an adapted version of Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirector. He conducted Le Nozze di Figaro at the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck in 2024.

As a pianist, Michael Wendeberg has won several national and international piano competitions and performed as a soloist at renowned festivals and with prestigious orchestras under conductors such as Jonathan Nott, Marek Janowski, and Daniel Barenboim. From 2000 to 2005 he was a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain and worked closely with György Kurtag and Pierre Boulez. In 2015 he played Boulez’s complete works for piano as part of the easter festival at the Staatsoper Berlin and in 2018 at the Boulez Saal. In 2021 a CD production of the complete works for one and two pianos was released on the label bastille musique.

Michael Wendeberg studied piano with Markus Stange, Bernd Glemser, Stefan Litwin and Benedetto Lupo, and conducting in Toshiyuki Kamioka’s masterclass in Saarbrücken. During this time, he worked as Toshiyuki Kamioka’s assistant at the Wuppertaler Bühnen. After graduating, Michael Wendeberg held positions at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, Lucerne Theatre, and the Staatsoper Berlin, where he assisted Daniel Barenboim and guest conductors such as Pierre Boulez and Sir Simon Rattle.

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