Franz Welser-Möst

The Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who was born in 1960 in Linz, has helmed the Cleveland Orchestra since 2002; he will hold that position until 2027, making him the longest-serving music director in the orchestra’s history. In addition to concerts at Severance Hall and the Blossom Music Center, he and the Clevelanders perform in residencies across the United States, Europe, and China. He regularly focuses on music for the stage as well, such as Beethoven’s Fidelio in the 2025-26 season. Welser-Möst previously held leadership positions at such companies as Zurich Opera (1995 to 2008). He maintains a close collaboration with the Vienna Philharmonic and conducted its prestigious New Year’s Concerts in 2011, 2013, and 2023. He has also led the orchestra on tours across the United States, Japan, China, and Australia. In 2024, the Vienna Philharmonic named him an Honorary Member. Welser-Möst’s 2024-25 engagements also included appearances with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Leipzig Gewand­haus Orchestra, and Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which he led during the Spring Festival. He is a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, where in recent years he has led new productions of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Die Liebe der Danae, Salome, and Elektra; Beethoven’s Fidelio; Reimann’s Lear; and Puccini’s Il trittico. Welser-Möst has received numerous awards for his recordings, including the Gramophone Award, the Diapason d’or, and the Japanese Record Academy Award. His most recent release, from March 2025, is of the Second Symphonies by Julius Eastman and Tchaikovsky. Welser-Möst is an Honorary Member of the Vienna Singverein as well as a recipient of the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art and the Kennedy Center Gold Medal of the Arts; he received the Festival Pin with Ruby from Salzburg in 2020, and, in 2021, the Austrian Music Theater Prize for his c­­onducting of Elektra. His 2020 book Als ich die Stille fand (When I Found Silence) makes “a plea against the noise of the world.”

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 26. March 1999 conducting the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Mahler’s Sixth Symphony.

August 2025