Michael Sanderling
Vita
Michael Sanderling has been Music Director of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra since 2021. Born in 1967 in Berlin to the double bassist Barbara Sanderling and the conductor Kurt Sanderling, he began his career as a cellist. After studying at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music and taking courses with William Pleeth, Yo-Yo Ma, Gary Hoffman, and Lynn Harrell, Sanderling won first prize at the Maria Canals Competition in Barcelona in 1987 and was engaged as principal cellist in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra that year; he held the same position with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin from 1994 to 2006. As a solo cellist, he has performed with such ensembles as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Orchestre de Paris. Sanderling also launched his conducting career in 2000. His first leadership position was as Artistic Director of the Kammerakademie Potsdam, from 2006 to 2010. For eight years, from 2011 to 2019, Sanderling then helmed the Dresden Philharmonic. He has appeared as a guest conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestre de Paris, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. In the 2023-24 season, he made his debuts with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Sanderling’s discography includes complete cycles of the Beethoven and Shostakovich symphonies with the Dresden Philharmonic. Together with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, he released a complete Brahms cycle in 2023 and the piano concertos of Schumann and Grieg, with soloist Elisabeth Leonskaja, in 2024. A passionate advocate for the younger generation, he teaches at the Frankfurt Music Academy and regularly works 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
March 2024