PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR
Sascha Goetzel
Viennese born Sascha Goetzel began violin lessons with his father at the age of six, and graduated with honours from the University of Music in Graz (Austria). As a regular player in the first violin section of the Vienna Philharmonic, he was able for more than a decade to work at close quarters with many of the world’s greatest conductors, and to consolidate his decision to take up the baton. Personal coachings followed: with Zubin Mehta, who described him as “highly talented, musically and technically”, with Riccardo Muti, who pronounced him “an enthusiastic, extraordinarily talented musician”, and with Seiji Ozawa, who invited him to the prestigious Tanglewood Music Festival. A stint at the Sibelius Academy in Finland under the tuition of the legendary Jorma Panula further confirmed Goetzel’s decision to concentrate exclusively on his conducting career.
A Conducting Fellowship Award at the Tanglewood Music Festival and a Rotary International Scholarship Award enabled him to extend the experience he had gathered in his native Austria, where he has conducted the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus. In the meantime Mr. Goetzel has made successful debuts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Shanghai Symphony, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Hannover, the NHK Orchestra, the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and the Toyota Master Players, in a wide spectrum of repertoire, including several world premičres. Viennese music is in his blood; conducting the Charlotte, Baltimore and Toronto Symphony orchestras, he has delighted North American audiences in this repertoire.
Alongside his symphonic work Sascha Goetzel has had substantial experience conducting opera, leading performances at the Vienna State Opera (Pinocchio), the Vienna Volksoper (Bluebeard), as Associate Conductor at the Los Angeles Opera (Nicholas and Alexandra) and at the Tyrolean State Theatre, Innsbruck, conducting the acclaimed new productions of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte. Placido Domingo, José Carreras, Anna Netrebko, José Cura, Thomas Hampson and Jerry Hadley are among the singers with whom he has worked.
Mr Goetzel has been appointed the Principal Conductor of the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra with effect from September 2007. Since 2004 he has been Music and Artistic Director of the Austrian-Korean Philharmonic Orchestra; he was Conductor in Residence of the Pacific Music Festival in Japan for two years, and is Associate Conductor of the Attergau Music Festival. Concert engagements this season include his debut with the Basel Symphony Orchestra, return engagements to Luxembourg and Kuopio, Basel, Cluj and Nagoya, concerts with the Tonkünstler Orchestra, the Innsbruck Symphony, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and Kyushu Symphony. In the season 07/08 Sascha Goetzel will conduct a new production of Nutcracker at the Vienna State Opera as well as a new production of Léhar’s Land of Smiles at the Vienna Volksoper, and is invited by Valery Gergiev to conduct at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.
Sascha Goetzel has conducted numerous performances with TV and radio broadcasts and has recorded works by Nino Rota and Max Bruch for Koch Classics. Besides his work as a conductor he is a successful music arranger for various ensembles and artists such as José Carreras, Ramón Vargas, the Ensemble Wien and the NTO-Orchestra. Several of his arrangements have been recorded and released by BMG and Deutsche Grammophon.
Concerts / Spring Season 2010 will be published in November 2009.
