Michael Wendeberg
conductor
© Magdalena Höfner
Conductor and pianist Michael Wendeberg has a rich and varied concert and operatic repertoire, ranging from the baroque to contemporary music. He's back at Oper Frankfurt to conduct Vito Žuraj's Blühen / Blossoming again, after conducting the world premiere here in early 2023. This season he led the world premiere of Sarah Nemtsov's Wir (We) at Theater Dortmund, toured with Klangforum Wien in Tongyeong, conducted the Remix Ensemble in Porto, Zender's Winterreise with Julian Prégardien and the Ensemble Modern and Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin and works by Illés, Hren and Isabel Mundry with the Slovenian Philharmonic in Ljubljana, Villach and Maribor. A much sought-after pianist, you can hear him playing all of Brahms' works for piano in Berlin in early 2026, and Pierre Boulez' works, in the Pierre Boulez Saal, in late 2025. He has appeared with orchestras including the SWR, WDR and MDR radio symphony orchestras, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, the Ensemble intercontemporain, Sinfonietta Basel, the Staatskapelle Berlin and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted at the Semperoper Dresden, in the Philharmonie in Paris, the Munich and Venice biennales, the Lucerne Festival, the ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Ultraschall Festival Berlin, Wien Modern and the Bregenz Festival. He was directeur musical des Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva from 2011 - 2018, and Chief Conductor of Halle Opera from 2020 - 2022. His first jobs after completing his piano and conducting studies took him to the Nationaltheater in Mannheim, the Theatre in Luzerne (1st Kapellmeister) and the Staatsoper in Berlin, where he assisted Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez and Sir Simon Rattle. The Berlin Label bastille released recordings of Michael Wendeberg conducting and playing the piano.