Alexander Liebreich

In December 2017 Alexander Liebreich was appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Designate of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. He will take up the position in September 2018.

Alexander Liebreich is currently Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR), starting in September 2012. In 2014 he inaugurated the new “NOSPR” concert hall in Katowice, the orchestra’s home, with a performance including the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Krystian Zimerman. The collaboration with the orchestra and the label Accentus Music features recordings of pieces by Lutosławski alongside other great Polish works. Their third CD release was winner of the International Classical Music Awards 2017 “Best Collection” category, featuring works by Karol Szymanowski and Witold Lutosławski.

In May 2015 he became Artistic Director of the new festival “Katowice Kultura Natura”. Since then, outstanding orchestras, ensembles and soloists have been invited to the Festival including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Leif Ove Ansdnes, András Schiff, Bejun Mehta, Stefano Bollani, Artemis Quartett and Quatuor Ebène.  

In 2018 he will take over as Artistic Director of the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen opening the first edition in June 2018 with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Next to that he became elected head of the Richard-Strauss-Society, following Wolfgang Sawallisch and Brigitte Fassbaender in this position.

He held the position of Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra from 2006 - 2016. Their first collaborative CD, featuring works by Joseph Haydn and Isang Yun, was released to great critical acclaim in January 2008. The recent release “Requiem“ by Tigran Mansurian, with RIAS Kammerchor on the label ECM Classics is nominated for the ICMA Award 2018 and for the Grammy Award 2018 in two categories.

As one of Germany’s foremost conductors, Alexander Liebreich’s extensive career takes him around the world. As guest conductor he has worked with many prestigious orchestras including the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Dresden Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich. Recent and future engagements include debuts with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta de Valencia, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Essener Philharmoniker and Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

He regularly performs with distinguished soloists such as Lisa Batiashvili, Krystian Zimerman, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Gautier Capuçon, Leila Josefowicz, and Isabelle Faust.

Alongside his concerts and opera productions, Liebreich has established a reputation for producing innovative projects. In 2011 he became the first European Artistic Director of the Tongyeong International Music Festival in South Korea, one of the biggest and most important festivals in Asia. With the goal of encouraging intercultural encounters, he implemented the “east-west-residence-programme”, inviting guest artists like Heiner Goebbels, Unsuk Chin, Martin Grubinger, Toshio Hosokawa and Beat Furrer to South Korea.

In October 2016 the Bavarian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Art announced that Alexander Liebreich is the recipient of the Bavarian Culture Prize Special Award.

Alexander Liebreich, was born in Regensburg and studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and the Salzburg Mozarteum and gained much of his early artistic experience with both Michael Gielen and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He got significantly influenced by his mentor Claudio Abbado, who invited him to join and assist productions at Salzburger Osterfestspiele with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and in Bolzano with the Gustav-Mahler-Jugend Orchestra.