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Conductor
Manfred Honeck's conducting career rapidly grew throughout the decade of the 1990s after he learned conducting from the inside, as a top-quality orchestral musician.
Born September 17, 1958, in Nenzing, Austria,
Honeck received his musical training at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna. After graduation, he took a position as a violist with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, making him eligible for membership in the
Vienna Philharmonic, which accepted him. He began working as a conductor with the Vienna Jeunesse Musicales Orchesters (Vienna Youth Orchestra). In 1987, conductor
Claudio Abbado invited
Honeck to assist him in conducting the
Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Vienna. His breakthrough performance was at the Gustav Mahler Festival in Kassel in 1989, conducting the centenary performance of the world premiere of
Mahler's first symphony.
Honeck made his operatic debut with the Vienna Volksoper in 1989, leading
Johann Strauss Jr.'s Die Fledermaus. Later in the season, he was invited to lead the company in
Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and
Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. In 1990, he was invited to conduct the gala concert of the
Vienna Philharmonic commemorating the 75th anniversary of the dedication of the Wiener Konzerthaus. Other conducting opportunities quickly opened up: he led the Berlin State Orchestra, the Berlin State Opera at the Unter den Linden Theater, and the Hamburg State Opera. At the latter position, he was again standing in
Gustav Mahler's footprints when he led the official Mahler production of
Mozart's Così fan tutte.
In 1991,
Honeck received a five-year contract with the Zürich Opera House as First Kapellmeister. There he added
Massenet's Hérodiade and Giordano's operas Fedora and Andrea Chénier to his credits and conducted the first performance of Herbert Willi's Schlafes Bruder. A high point of this early part of his career was his debut at Salzburg, conducting the
Vienna Philharmonic during the Mozart Week of 1994.
In 1996,
Honeck became chief conductor of the MDR (Central German Radio) Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig. In 1997, he was appointed music director of the
Norwegian National Opera, and in 1998 he was named principal guest conductor of the
Oslo Philharmonic. He was the chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (2000-2006) and music director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart (2007-2011), and since the 2008-2009 season, he has been music director of the
Pittsburgh Symphony.
With the
Pittsburgh Symphony,
Honeck has recorded for Exton Classics and for the orchestra's in-house Reference Recordings label. He has continued to specialize in late Romantic repertory, recording several
Mahler symphonies,
Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 for Reference in 2015, and suites from
Richard Strauss' Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier for the same label the following year. In 2017, Reference Recordings released the
Honeck/
Pittsburgh recording of
Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47, powerfully coupled with
Barber's Adagio for Strings.
Honeck's 2019 album
Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 with the
Pittsburgh Symphony was nominated for a Grammy award.
Honeck continues to reside in Austria, in the village of Altach, with his wife, Christiane, and six children.