Johannes Klumpp

"The young, up-and-coming conductor Johannes Klumpp performs with great agility and subtle nuance. [...]This leads to the magic of an unbridled, flowing music-making, one that forgets itself and holds the listener under a breathless spell." WIESBADENER TAGEBLATT

In creative partnership with the orchestra, Johannes Klumpp develops unique programmes – from late baroque to classical modernism – that thrill audiences. Since the 2013/14 season, he has worked with the young musicians of the Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen as its chief conductor and artistic director. Klumpp has also developed innovative programme formats through the “ExtraKlang” series held at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Zeche Zollverein, collaborating with such well-known German cultural figures as the late publicist Roger Willemsen, the actor Rufus Beck, and the Oscar-nominated composer and pianist Hauschka.        

Johannes Klumpp has cultivated a busy calendar of performances with prominent orchestras including the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Düsseldorf Symphony, Dresdner Philharmonie, WDR Funkhausorchester Köln, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, the Munich, Stuttgart and Nuremberg Symphonies, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, and Kammerakademie Potsdam. His latest CDs were released to critical acclaim, including a recording with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with works by Françaix, Tomasi, Jolivet, and Villa-Lobos, and one with the Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen featuring works by Mozart.

His opera house appearances have also been highly praised, with critics calling him a “conductor-of-singers par excellence.” Most recently, his Figaro at the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck in winter 2016/17 attracted great attention. The conductor feels an especially close connection to the works of Mozart, but since his time as First Kapellmeister of the Musiktheater im Revier Geselkirchen, he has also developed a wide-ranging theatrical repertoire, including works from Handel’s Flavio and Monteverdi’s Lamenti to Verdi’s Aida, Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, Nicolai’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Gounod’s Faust.

Klumpp also regularly appears in the dual role of conductor and presenter to encourage audiences’ connection with the music. He is convinced that “in this day and age we have to show the way to what we love so much – cross over the threshold.” He also implements this philosophy at the Schloss Hundisburg Summer Music Academy Festival in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where he was appointed artistic director in 2013. Here, the conductor and his team create outstanding musical experiences in a rural setting, far from cultural centres.

He begins the 2019/20 season at the podium of the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by a performance of Mahler’s 6^th Symphony with the Orchestre de Berlin. He will introduce himself to Polish audiences by making his debut with the Filharmonia Opolska, conducting Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel. In addition, the Hofer Symphoniker will give their big New Year’s concert series under his direction. This is followed by return invitations to the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, and the Münchner Symphoniker.

Born in Stuttgart, Johannes Klumpp learnt his trade under Prof. Nicolás Pasquet and Prof. Gunter Kahlert in Weimar alongside viola studies, and first attracted international attention when he won second prize in the International Conducting Competition in Besançon in 2007. This was followed by further awards at the German conservatory competition “in memoriam Herbert von Karajan”, and at the German Conducting Competition in 2011. Masterclasses with renowned conductors such as Kurt Masur, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and Michail Jurowski rounded out his artistic training, during which he was a scholarship-holder of the German Music Council’s conductors’ development programme “Maestros of Tomorrow”.   

2019/2020 season

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