Manfred Honeck

Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck, who has been Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since 2008, began his career as a violist: he was a member of the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic for more than ten years. He gained his first conducting experience as Claudio Abbado’s assistant with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra before being appointed First Kapellmeister at Zurich Opera in 1991. From 1996 to 1999, Honeck served as one of the principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig; from 2000 to 2006, he served as Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; he was also associated with the Oslo Philharmonic and the Czech Philharmonic as Principal Guest Conductor. Honeck has conducted numerous major orchestras throughout his career: the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam; the Boston, London, and Chicago Symphony Orchestras; the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; the Staatskapelle Dresden; and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra named him Honorary Conductor in 2023 in recognition of their decades-long collaboration. Manfred Honeck was General Music Director at the Stuttgart Staatsoper from 2007 to 2011. Further opera engagements took him to the Salzburg Festival, the Semperoper in Dresden, the Komische Oper in Berlin, the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, and the Royal Opera in Copenhagen. In 2022, he made his debut with Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and in 2026, he conducted Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the Salzburg Festival. Honeck has received numerous awards for his recordings, including the 2018 International Classical Music Award for Artist of the Year. Manfred Honeck has received several honorary doctorates and was awarded the formal honorary professional title of Professor by the President of Austria.

Debut as a conductor at Lucerne Festival (IMF) on 23 August 1996 with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and works by Grieg and Mahler; last appearance here was on 5 September 2018, when he conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in music by Berg, Wagner, and Bruckner.

June 2026