Music Director from 2021/22 Alain Altinoglu appointed new Music Director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony
Alain Altinoglu (44) will be the new Music Director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony from the 2021/22 season for an initial term of three years until the 2023/24 season. In August 2021 he will conduct his first concerts as Music Director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony.
Alain Altinoglu has already impressed both the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and its audience: In August 2019, he conducted the orchestra at the »Europa Open Air« on Frankfurt's riverbank, a performance enjoyed by an audience of approximately 20,000. »I am delighted to be appointed Music Director of the great Frankfurt Radio Symphony from 2021/22,« says Altinoglu. »When I first had the opportunity to work with the orchestra last summer at the ›Europa Open Air‹, I was thrilled by the special atmosphere and warmth I found there, which is also reflected in the fantastic sound of the ensemble. I look forward to our partnership with great anticipation.«
»Alain Altinoglu is a conductor in great demand worldwide, who sees it as his task to be a good mediator between composer and audience. The Frankfurt Radio Symphony, one of Germany's leading orchestras, is not only highly popular with its home audience, but also extremely successful internationally. We are looking forward to Altinoglu and his outstanding stage presence and are eager to see how he will continue the positive development of our orchestra and enrich it with new facets«, said Manfred Krupp, director general of Hessischer Rundfunk.
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Greeting from Alain Altinoglu
Altinoglu, born in Paris in 1975, studied at the Conservatoire Supérieure de musique et danse where he is now teaching the conducting class. In 2016 Altinoglu became Directeur Musical des Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, where his contract has just been extended until 2025.
Only a few artists move so easily between opera and symphony as the Frenchman of Armenian descent. Altinoglu regularly conducts renowned American orchestras in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and Philadelphia as well as with the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the leading orchestras in Paris. Altinoglu gave a successful debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2017, and will make his debut with the Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam in early 2020. He has also worked closely with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2019 he also conducted the Orchestre National de France as part of the annual »Concert de Paris« on French National Day with more than 500,000 spectators at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, which was streamed millions of times worldwide.
Alain Altinoglu has earned an outstanding reputation in almost every genre with his intuition for timbre, detail and depth of interpretation, be it in symphonic programmes, as a song accompanist, or as an opera conductor. He has recently enjoyed great success with a production of Hector Berlioz's »Les Troyens« at the Vienna State Opera. He also repeatedly highlighted La Monnaie’s strengths with productions of Wagner operas, including »Tristan und Isolde« and »Lohengrin«.
In addition to the world's major opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Royal Opera House London Covent Garden, the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, the Vienna State Opera, the Zurich Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Bavarian State Opera Munich and the three Parisian opera venues, Alain Altinoglu also makes regular guest appearances at the festivals in Bayreuth, Salzburg, Orange and Aix-en-Provence. In addition to his work with opera voices, he also has an affinity to the Lied repertoire, regularly accompanying mezzo-soprano Nora Gubisch on the piano.
With Alain Altinoglu, Hessischer Rundfunk has engaged a conductor whose successful work has been documented by numerous CD releases. Alain Altinoglu succeeds the Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada as Music Director, who has successfully developed the orchestra as Music Director since 2014 with a number of international tours.
Before his inaugural concert as Music Director, Altinoglu, who lives in Paris, will conduct three concerts with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in Frankfurt on 12 February and 13/14 February 2020.