Alexander Liebreich
Conductor

The 2022/2023 season saw Alexander Liebreich begin his tenure as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of Orquesta de Valencia, and Artistic Advisor of the Palau de la Música de Valencia.

Liebreich held the position of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2018-2022, and from 2012-2019 he was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR). In 2014, he inaugurated the new NOSPR Concert Hall in Katowice – the orchestra’s home – with a performance including Brahms Piano Concerto No 1 with Krystian Zimerman. The collaboration with the orchestra and the label Accentus Music led to recordings of pieces by Lutosławski alongside other great Polish works. Their third CD release, featuring works by Szymanowski and Lutosławski, won in the “Best Collection” category of the 2017 International Classical Music Awards (ICMA).

Liebreich was Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra from 2006-2016. Their ECM Classics release of Tigran Mansurian’s Requiem with RIAS Kammerchor received a nomination for a Grammy Award in 2018 and won the ICMA Award 2018 in the category of “Contemporary Music”.

In 2018, Liebreich took 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 Bavarian Radio Choir; he will be holding the post until 2023. He was also elected head of the Richard Strauss Society, following Wolfgang Sawallisch and Brigitte Fassbaender in this position.

As Artistic Director of the Katowice Kultura Natura Festival from 2015-2018, Liebreich invited some of Europe’s finest orchestras, ensembles and soloists including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

As one of Germany’s foremost conductors, Liebreich’s extensive career takes him around the world. As guest conductor, he has worked with many prestigious orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Dresden Philharmonic, St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. He regularly performs with distinguished soloists such as Lisa Batiashvili, Veronika Eberle, Krystian Zimerman, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Gautier Capuçon, Alban Gerhardt, Leila Josefowicz and Isabelle Faust. Recent highlights include débuts at the Grafenegg Festival, George Enescu Festival, La Folle Journée in Warsaw, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie and Gulbenkian Orchestra.

Alongside his concerts and opera performances, 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 2016, the Bavarian State Ministry for Education, Culture, Science and Art announced Liebreich as the recipient of the Bavarian Culture Prize Special Award.

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