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Teodor Currentzis Conductor
Music Director of Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre
Founder and Music Director of Musica Aeterna Ensemble and New Siberian Singers Chamber Choir
Teodor Currentzis is the Music Director of the Novosibirsk State Opera and Orchestra (since 2003/04) and is the founder and Artistic Director of the period instrument ensemble Musica Aeterna formed in 2004. He joined the Bolshoi Opera in 2009 as one of the “top five conductors” and has recently made his successful debut with a new production of Berg’s Wozzeck. Combining his knowledge and passion for early music with contemporary composers and new music, Teodor started the Territoria Modern Art Festival – a new annual music festival in Moscow.
He conducts all of the major Russian orchestras including the Russian National Orchestra, the New Russia Symphony Orchestra and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra of Vladimir Spivakov with whom he holds the post of ‘Permanent Conductor’. He is now recognized as one of the most influential conductors in Russia because of the quality of both the projects and the sound of the orchestra in Novosibirsk, the concerts in Moscow and Novosibirsk with Musica Aeterna, the engagements with the resident orchestras in Russia and, of course, his work at the Bolshoi.
Following his successful debut at Paris Opera in 2008, Teodor returned in 2009 with a critically acclaimed production of Verdi’s Macbeth directed by Dmitry Tcherniakov. In the next two seasons, he will make his debut in Zurich Opera with Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District; Bayerische Staatsoper with Verdi’s Macbeth; a return to the Bolshoi for the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Madrid Opera. He makes his debut at the International Festival Baden-Baden with a new production of Bizet’s Carmen directing the Balthasar Neumann Choir and Orchestra and will return each season to Baden-Baden to conduct various Mozart operas. In summer 2010, he will conduct the premiere of Weinberg’s The Passenger at the Bregenz Festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
In 2009/10, Teodor made a successful debut with SWR Baden-Baden and has been immediately reinvited for further concerts each season. Future orchestral debuts include NDR Hamburg, Orchestre National de Lyon, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Madrid Opera Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.
During his time in Novosibirsk, Teodor has created Musica Aeterna which now sells out concerts in both their home and in Moscow. The orchestra will give concerts this season at the International Festival Baden-Baden and Bregenz Festival and next season will travel to the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam with plans to go to Berlin, Paris and London in 2011/12. They have an exclusive recording contract with Alpha Records and their most recent release, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14, has already been well-received. Their first recording, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, was released last year and continues to garner excellent reviews and they will release Mozart Requiem in the coming months.
Russia has become Teodor’s home since the beginning of the 1990s, when he began studying conducting at the state conservatory of St. Petersburg, under the tutelage of Professor Ilya Musin, whose pupils, among others, were renowned conductors Odyseuss Dimitriadis, Valery Gergiev, and Semyon Bychkov.
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