Michael Wendeberg

Classical repertoire – from Bach to Schoenberg – comes just as naturally to conductor and pianist Michael Wendeberg as his passion for new music. In 2016 he took up the position of “Erster Kapellmeister” at the Halle Opera, where in the current season he is conducting Stravinsky’s Firebird and concert performances of Tchaikovsky’s Eugen Onegin, along with an opera premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

Michael Wendeberg has conducted renowned orchestras and ensembles including the Staatskapelle Berlin, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra Ljubljana, Klangforum Wien, Remix Ensemble Porto, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Musikfabrik Cologne and the Basel Sinfonietta. He has made guest appearances at the Lucerne Festival, Munich Biennale, Bregenz Festival, Venice Biennale, Eclat Festival Stuttgart, Ultraschall Berlin Festival and Klangspuren Schwaz, as well as at Wien Modern. He made his debut with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble Modern and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Beethovenfest Bonn and with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin at the Acht Brücken Festival Cologne. Since April 2018, after seven years as Music Director, he is first guest conductor of the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva.

Michael Wendeberg studied piano with Markus Stange, Bernd Glemser 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 and the Staatsoper Berlin, where he assisted Daniel Barenboim and guest conductors such as Pierre Boulez and Sir Simon Rattle, and was principal conductor at the Lucerne Theater.

His opera repertoire ranges from Handel's Orlando, Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte, La Clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte, Verdi’s Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera and Aida, Bizet’s Carmen, Puccini’s La Bohème and Tosca and Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream to numerous premieres. He attracted national attention early in his career with the world premiere of Enno Poppe's ArbeitNahrungWohnung in a production by Anna Viebrock at the Munich Biennale in 2008. In 2017 he returned to the Staatsoper Berlin for performances of Die Zauberflöte and for a new production of Aribert Reimann's Gespenstersonate. In Halle, he conducted Weber’s Freischütz and Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine, as well as the premiere of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos.

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 Pierre Boulez. In March 2018 he appeared at the Boulez Saal with Boulez’s complete works for piano, a feat he first pulled off as part of the late composer’s 90^th birthday celebrations at the Staatsoper Berlin in 2015; a CD production of the sonatas is also soon to be released.

In the 2019/20 season, concerts with Ensemble Modern have already taken him to Schwaz, Shanghai and Prague. He also directed concerts for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and returned to the WDR Symphony Orchestra. He makes his debut with the SWR Symphony Orchestra as a guest at the Eclat Festival Stuttgart, and at the Munich Biennale conducts a new opera by the composer Ole Hübner. In August 2020 as part of Suntory Hall’s Summer Festival he will direct the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Debussy’s Jeux alongside a new viola concerto by Isabel Mundry for soloist Nils Mönkemeyer.

2019/20 Season

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