Classical repertoire – from Bach to Boulez – comes to conductor and pianist Michael Wendeberg with just as much ease as his dedicated work with new music. From 2020 to 2022 he acted as Chief Conductor Opera at the Bühnen Halle (Saale), where he held the position of “Erster Kapellmeister” from 2016 to 2023.

Guest engagements have taken him to the Semperoper Dresden and the Frankfurt Opera, among others. He has conducted orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the WDR, SWR, and RSB Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. He has been a guest at the Lucerne Festival, the Bregenz Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, and Wien Modern. His opera repertoire ranges from Handel’s Orlando to Tosca, Tristan und Isolde and Der Rosenkavalier, and includes numerous world premieres.

As a pianist, Michael Wendeberg has performed as a soloist under conductors such as Jonathan Nott, Marek Janowski, and Daniel Barenboim, for whom he stepped in as both pianist and conductor in Berlin and Paris in 2023. From 2000 to 2005 he was a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain and worked closely with György Kurtág and Pierre Boulez. In 2015 he played Boulez’s complete works for piano as part of the easter festival at the Staatsoper Berlin and in 2018 at the Boulez Saal. In 2021 a CD production of the complete works for one and two pianos was released on the label bastille musique.