Alexander Liebreich

Conductor Alexander Liebreich has drawn attention in repertory of great variety, from J.S. Bach, Haydn, and Rossini to works by Isang Yun, Toshio Hosokawa, and Betty Olivero. However, it is not just his wide-ranging and multiethnic repertory that points up Liebreich's versatility and eclecticism, it is the variety in his whole multifaceted career, from guest-conducting both major and second-tier orchestras across Europe, Japan, and New Zealand to conducting opera at such venues as the Frankfurt Opera. Liebreich was born in Regensburg, Germany, on May 25, 1968. Liebreich showed musical talent early on and, at 17, founded the Regensburg Chamber Choir. He studied musicology and Romance languages at Regensburg University. Liebreich later enrolled at the Hochschule für Müsik in Munich, where he studied conducting and voice. He had further study at the Salzburg Mozarteum, where his teachers included Michael Gielen. In 1996, Liebreich won the International Kirill Kondrashin Conducting Competition in Amsterdam. In the aftermath of that victory, he served as assistant to several important conductors, including Colin Davis, Robert Abbado, and, at the Hilversum-based Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Edo de Waart. Liebreich also took master classes with Myung-Whun Chung and, on invitation from Claudio Abbado, worked on operatic endeavors at the Salzburg Festival with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He was also busily engaged as a guest conductor with various orchestras throughout Europe. In 2000, he led a concert at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw featuring music by Leonard Bernstein to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of the famed composer and conductor. Two years later, Liebreich toured both North and South Korea with the German Youth Orchestra. Liebreich served the first of several stints as a guest professor at Pyongyang University in the fall of 2003. That year, he made his recording debut on the Chandos label, leading the North Netherlands Orchestra and Concert Choir in a performance of Jacob Ter Veldhuis' oratorio Paradiso. In 2004, Liebreich toured the Netherlands with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and violin soloist Janine Jansen. Liebreich became the artistic director and chief conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra in 2006, stepping down from that post in 2016. In September 2011, Liebreich debuted at the Frankfurt Opera, leading a performance of Othmar Schoeck's Penthesilea. That same year, he was appointed artistic director of the Tongyeong International Music Festival in Tongyeong City, South Korea. Among Liebreich's more acclaimed as well as unusual recordings is his 2011 ECM disc of Landscape No. 5 and other works by Toshio Hosokawa. In 2012, he was named principal conductor of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, remaining in that post until 2019. He has also recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Accentus, and other labels, moving to Hyperion for an album of harpsichord concertos by Viktor Kalabis, Hans Krása, and Bohuslav Martinu in 2023. On that recording, Liebreich led the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, of which has been chief conductor and artistic director since 2018. He is also the artistic director of the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany. ~ Robert Cummings & James Manheim, Rovi