Image Copyright: Markenfotografie

Strauss, Wagner, and a lifelong mastery of the music of the German tradition in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world.

This event entailed an intimate discussion between Thomas Lausmann, Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera, and Marek Janowski, artistic director and chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic who currently leads the Metropolitan Opera’s star-studded production of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos before he starts his final season in Dresden with an ambitious Wagner Ring Cycle.

Thomas Lausmann was appointed Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera at the beginning of the 2019/20 season. He was previously Head of Music at the Vienna State Opera since 2013 and was an assistant conductor/coach with the company for the preceding three seasons. During his time in Vienna, Thomas was also a regular pianist with the Vienna Philharmonic playing piano, celeste, harpsichord and organ in concerts at home and on tour.

Marek Janowski came to the Dresden Philharmonic for the first time as Chief conductor from 2001 to 2003. Already at this time, he impressed by offering unusual and ambitious programmes. Marek Janowski became the Chief conductor and Artistic director of the Dresden Philharmonic for the second time in the 2019-20 concert season. Born in 1939 in Warsaw, raised and educated in Germany, Marek Janowski can look back on an extensive and successful career both as opera conductor and as head of major concert orchestras. His artistic path led him, after his years as assistant and chief conductor in Aachen, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Hamburg, to Freiburg i. Br. and Dortmund as general music director. From the Metropolitan Opera New York and the Bavarian State Opera Munich, from Chicago, San Francisco, Hamburg, Vienna, Berlin to Paris, he was a regular guest in the major international opera houses since the late 1970s.