Franz Welser-Möst

Conductor

“Welser-Möst and the Cleveland players, joined at the hip, … offered playing divinely precise, exquisitely refined.”

Geoff Brown

The Arts Desk

For 23 years, Franz Welser-Möst has shaped an unmistakable sound culture as Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Under his leadership, the orchestra has been repeatedly praised by international critics for its musical excellence. Through innovation and co-operations, the Cleveland Orchestra now has one of the youngest audiences in the USA. Throughout Franz Welser-Möst’s tenure, the orchestra has continued Its strong commitment to newly-written music and brought back opera to the stage of the Severance Music Center. In addition to orchestral residencies in the USA, Europe and China, he and the Cleveland Orchestra are regular guests at all the major international festivals. Franz Welser-Möst will remain Musical Director of the Cleveland Orchestra until 2027, the longest tenure of any Music Director the orchestra has had.

As a guest conductor, Franz Welser-Möst enjoys a particularly close and productive artistic partnership with the Vienna Philharmonic. He regularly conducts the orchestra in subscription concerts at the Vienna Musikverein, as well as on tours in Europe, Japan, China and the USA. Welser-Möst and the Vienna Philharmonic have also performed together at historical memorial concerts in Sarajevo and Versailles. Franz Welser-Möst has appeared three times on the podium for their celebrated New Year’s Concert (2011, 2013, 2023). The 2023 New Year’s Concert was hailed by critics and audiences as one of the best in the concert’s history.

At the Salzburg Festival Franz Welser-Möst has set new standards in interpretation as an opera conductor with performances including Rusalka, Fidelio, Aribert Reimann’s opera Lear and Puccini’s Il Trittico. There has been a special focus on the operas of Richard Strauss, with Welser-Möst conducting Der Rosenkavalier, Die Liebe der Danae, and the much lauded production of Salome, with which he made festival history in 2018. In 2020 and 2021 he conducted Strauss’ Elektra on the 100th Anniversary of the Salzburg Festival.

In the coming season, Franz Welser-Möst returns to the Vienna State Opera with a new production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. From 2010 to 2014, Franz Welser-Möst was General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, where, in addition to maintaining the broad repertoire of the House, he devoted himself in particular to the operas of the 20th century, including a special artistic focus on the operas of Leoš Janáček.

Franz Welser-Möst has been the recipient of a number of major honours and awards. He is Honorary Member of the Vienna Philharmonic, winner of the Vienna Philharmonic’s Honorary Ring, Honorary Member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and has been awarded the Kilenyi Medal of the Bruckner Society of America as well as the Kennedy Center Gold Medal in the Arts. In 2020, Franz Welser-Möst was awarded the Salzburg Festival Pin with Ruby in and in 2021, he was awarded the Austrian Music Theatre Prize for Elektra at the Salzburg Festival in the “Best Musical Direction” category.

Immediately following its release in summer 2020, Franz Welser-Möst’s latest book, Als ich die Stille fand. Ein Plädoyer gegen den Lärm der Welt, became a No. 1 Austrian bestseller. In 2021 the book was translated and published in English (From Silence: Finding Calm in a Dissonant World).

Franz Welser-Möst has made numerous CD and DVD recordings and many of his recordings have won international awards. In 2020, the Cleveland Orchestra founded its own streaming platform: adella.live. Various recordings from Severance Hall are available as stream, download and CD.

www.welsermoest.com 

 

Franz Welser-Most is managed by Enticott Music Management in association with IMG Artists.

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Current as at 13 Sept 2023, please destroy all previously dated materials.

 

Artist News
Franz Welser-Möst Awarded Honorary Membership by the Vienna Philharmonic

Franz Welser-Möst Awarded Honorary Membership by the Vienna Philharmonic

The Vienna Philharmonic is pleased to announce that it has awarded honorary membership to Franz Welser-Möst. Daniel Froschauer, Chairman of the Vienna Philharmonic, said, "The artistic collaboration with Franz Welser-Möst began in 1998. Since then, he has led the...

A Message from Franz Welser-Möst

A Message from Franz Welser-Möst

September 8, 2023   Franz Welser-Möst recently had a cancerous tumor removed and will need to undergo treatment between his conducting engagements for the next twelve to sixteen months. His first period of treatment will begin at the end of October. Regrettably,...

Welser-Möst conducts “glittering” Die Liebe der Danae in Salzburg

Welser-Möst conducts “glittering” Die Liebe der Danae in Salzburg

Franz Welser-Möst has just conducted the final performance in the Salzburg Festival’s widely acclaimed new production of Richard Strauss’s late-career rarity, Die Liebe der Danae. Composed during the Second World War, and planned for the Salzburg Festival in 1944, the...

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