Festival Archipel 2019, Genève - biographie de Michael Wendeberg

© Isabelle Meister

In concert

N'oublions pas le son de la lumière - 03.29 8pm

Michael Wendeberg studied conducting in Toshiyuki Kamioka's masterclass in Saarbrücken, and piano with Markus Stange, Bernd Glemser and Benedetto Lupo. During this time he worked as Toshiyuki Kamioka's assistant at the Wuppertaler Bühnen. After graduating Michael Wendeberg held positions at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and Staatsoper Berlin, where he assisted Daniel Barenboim and guest conductors such as Pierre Boulez and Sir Simon Rattle, and was principal conductor at the Lucerne Theater. His opera repertoire from this time comprises, among others, Bizet's Carmen, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Handel's Orlando, Mozart's Zaide, Clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute, Verdi's La Traviata and Il Trovatore, Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Pasquale, Rossini's La Scala di Seta and La Cenerentola, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, Ponchielli's La Gioconda and Bernstein's West Side Story. He has conducted orchestras and ensembles that include the Staatskapelle Berlin, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Klangforum Wien, Remix Ensemble Porto, Musikfabrik Cologne, Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart, the Basel Sinfonietta and the orchestra of the WDR Cologne. He has made guest appearances at the Lucerne Festival, Munich Biennale, Bregenzer Festspiele, Venice Biennale, Teatro San Martín Buenos Aires, Eclat Festival Stuttgart and Klangspuren Schwaz, as well as at Wien Modern and Musica de hoy Madrid with a variety of programmes. In freelance music theatre projects Michael Wendeberg always cultivates a close working relationship with the directing team. He gained national recognition early on in his career with The man who mistook his wife for a hat by Michael Nyman

in Wuppertal in 2006, with the world premiere of ArbeitNahrungWohnung by Enno Poppe in a production by Anna Viebrock in 2008 at the Munich Biennale, and with Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Des Simplicius Simplicissimus Jugend, which was staged by the director Thomas Fiedler in Zurich in 2010. As a pianist Michael Wendeberg won several national and international piano competitions and performed as a soloist at renowned festivals and with prestigious orchestras under conductors such as Jonathan Nott, Marek Janowski and Daniel Barenboim. From 2000 until 2005 he was a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain and worked intensively with Pierre Boulez. He recently performed the late composer's complete works for piano during his 90 th birthday celebrations at the Berlin State Opera in 2015. Classical repertoire – from Bach to Schönberg – comes just as naturally to Michael Wendeberg as his passion for new music. He is especially eager to change the way contemporary repertoire and music is seen and heard through comparing and correlating different music traditions. He is pursuing this approach in particular in his current position as musical director of the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva. The 2016/17 season took Michael Wendeberg on conducting engagements to the Estonian National Orchestra, to his debut with the Ensemble Modern and to the Berlin State Opera where he will direct a revival of The Magic Flute and a new production of Reimann's opera Gespenstersonate. Additionally, he will start to work as first Kapellmeister at the opera house of Halle, Germany.