Jörg Widmann

Jörg Widmann, who will become Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy in 2026, was born in Munich in 1973. A composer, clarinetist, and conductor, he is one of the most versatile artists of our time. After studying clarinet in Munich and at the Juilliard School in New York, where his teachers included Gerd Starke and Charles Neidich, he pursued composition studies with Kay Westermann, Wilfried Hiller, Hans Werner Henze, Heiner Goebbels, and Wolfgang Rihm. His works are premiered and regularly performed by such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Kent Nagano, Andris Nelsons, Sir Simon Rattle, and Christian Thielemann, and by the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, the New York Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. In the 2023-24 season, Widmann was composer-in-residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker, where he conducted a concert featuring his own compositions alongside works by Mendelssohn; Sir Simon Rattle led the world premiere of his Horn Concerto with Stefan Dohr as soloist. Widmann previously served as composer-in-residence at Lucerne Festival in 2009; most recently, in the summer of 2023, the Festival presented the world premiere of The last rose of summer for viola and orchestra, a work it had commissioned. As a conductor, Widmann has appeared with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra, among others. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie, Creative Partner of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Artistic Partner of Sinfonietta Riga, and Associate Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra. Alongside his composing and conducting, Widmann continues to perform as a clarinetist, collaborating with such partners as Daniel Barenboim, Tabea Zimmermann, Sir András Schiff, and Hélène Grimaud. A number of works have been dedicated to him, including clarinet concertos by Wolfgang Rihm, Aribert Reimann, and Mark Andre. From 2001 to 2015, Widmann taught clarinet and composition at the University of Music in Freiburg/Br. Since 2017, he has been professor of composition at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Hamburg Bach Prize (2023) and the Music Prize of the City of Munich (2021). In recognition of his contributions to music, he was named a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 2024.

May 2025