Wayne Marshall
Vita
The British conductor, organist, and pianist Wayne Marshall was born in Oldham near Manchester in 1961. He began his organ training at Chetham’s School of Music and later studied at the Royal College of Music in London and the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. A sought-after interpreter of the music of George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, and other 20th-century American composers, he has led Bernstein’s Candide at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Opéra National de Lyon and conducted the Orchestre de Paris in Mass. At the Semperoper in Dresden, he presided over a production of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby; he has also led Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at Opéra de Montréal. Marshall has enjoyed great success with Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, including productions at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and the Vienna Staatsoper. He served as Principal Guest Conductor with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano “Giuseppe Verdi” from 2007 to 2013 and Principal Conductor of the WDR Funkhausorchester in Cologne from 2014 to 2020. Marshall has guest conducted the Berlin and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras; the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra; and the Seattle, Baltimore, Vancouver, and Nashville Symphony Orchestras. A tour with the German National Youth Orchestra is scheduled for 2025-26. He will also make his debut at the Grand Théâtre de Genève with Gershwin’s An American in Paris and will conduct the New Year’s Concert of the Tonhalle Orchestra. As an organist, Marshall performs all over the world, including at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, London’s Royal Albert Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and in major cathedrals. He received the Echo Klassik Award for his Gershwin Songbook; his most recent album, Passion Symphony, features works by Dupré, Messiaen, Schmidt, and Widor and was released in 2021. Marshall was appointed an Officer of the British Empire in 2021.
Lucerne Festival debut on 18 April 1992 in an Easter Vigil liturgy with the Taverner Consort under Andrew Parrott.
August 2025