About this Artist

With an enviable reputation both on the concert platform and in the opera house, MARKUS STENZ is now one of the most sought-after conductors of his generation. His recent appointment as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra follows periods as Principal Conductor of the London Sinfonietta (1994 - 1998) and Music Director of the Montepulciano Festival (1989 - 1995). Major concert engagements to date have included appearances with the Munich and Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, Philharmonic, and Scottish Symphony Orchestras, the Hallé Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the RAI Symphony Orchestras in both Turin and Milan, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and the Orchestre de Paris. He is a regular guest conductor with Ensemble Modern and the Ensemble InterContemporain.

After recent debut performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Minnesota Orchestra, he stepped in at short notice to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, resulting in immediate invitations to return. He also returns to Minnesota and makes his debuts with the Atlanta, Seattle, Indianapolis, and Houston Symphony Orchestras in the next two seasons.

Markus Stenz has established a considerable international reputation as an exceptionally fine opera conductor. New productions have included Mozart’s Don Giovanni for English National Opera, Le nozze di Figaro for Los Angeles Opera, Rossini’s Il turco in Italia at the Stadtheater Basel, Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, and Hans Zender’s Stephen Climax at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. He returns to San Francisco in 2000 to conduct Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and to Frankfurt for a new production of Wolfgang Rihm’s Die Eroberung von Mexico.

Stenz has a great affinity with the music of Hans Werner Henze. In 1988 he conducted Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers at La Fenice in Venice. Other Henze productions have included The English Cat at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the world première of Das verratene Meer in Berlin, and subsequent new productions of the piece at La Scala Milan and San Francisco Opera. He conducted a new production of The Bassarids in Hamburg in 1997 and the world première of Venus and Adonis at the Bayerische Staats-oper in Munich. The symphonic music of Henze features regularly in Stenz’s programs. He will conduct a concert performance of The Bassarids with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002.

A regular guest at the BBC Proms, Markus Stenz performed Kurt Weill’s Der Silbersee with the London Sinfonietta in 1996; it was subsequently recorded and released by BMG Classics. The next season included performances with the Ensemble Modern in Rome, the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Gothenberg Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Radio Symphony, and the BBC Symphony at the Cheltenham International Music Festival, as well as appearances at the BBC Proms and the Munich Biennale. His outstanding debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich resulted in an invitation to conduct the orchestra in the prestigious series of Academy Concerts.

This year, Markus Stenz will lead the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on its first major overseas tour visiting Switzerland, the Canary Islands, Austria, and Germany, including concerts in Zurich, Munich, Cologne, and Salzburg.

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