Michael Sanderling

Michael Sanderling has served as Chief Conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra since 2021, with the aim of further expanding the repertoire toward the late Romantic period, including composers such as Bruckner, Mahler, and Strauss. The son of the double bassist Barbara Sanderling and the conductor Kurt Sanderling, he was born in Berlin in 1967 and began his career as an internationally successful cellist before turning to conducting in 2000. His first chief position was as Artistic Director of the Kammerakademie Potsdam from 2006 to 2010; he then led the Dresden Philharmonic from 2011 to 2019. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In the 2025–26 season, he returned to the Berliner Philharmoniker, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He has toured Asia, South America, and Germany with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. He presented Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony alongside William Kentridge’s animated film Oh To Believe in Another World in Lucerne and Vienna, as well as at the Festival Pompeji Theatrum Mundi. His recordings include the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Shostakovich with the Dresden Philharmonic. He released a complete Brahms cycle in 2023 and, most recently in 2025, Mozart’s Requiem and Fazıl Say’s Mozart & Mevlana — both with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. A passionate advocate for the next generation, he teaches at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and works regularly with the German National Youth Orchestra, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut as a cellist on 26 August 1989 with the Trio Ex Aequo in a program of works by Beethoven, Paul, and Shostakovich. He first ­appeared here as a conductor in summer 2021

May 2025