Franz Welser-Möst
Conductor“Welser-Möst and the Cleveland players, joined at the hip, … offered playing divinely precise, exquisitely refined.”
For 21 years, Franz Welser-Möst has shaped an unmistakable sound culture as Musical Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Under his leadership, the orchestra has been repeatedly praised by international critics for its musical excellence. Through innovative projects and co-operations, young audiences have been continuously approached and consulted and, as a result of these initiatives, the Cleveland Orchestra now has one of the youngest audiences in the USA. Throughout his tenure, he has continued the historical tradition of the Orchestra by having a strong presence of both newly-commissioned works and opera productions within the artistic programming. 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.
Franz Welser-Möst is also a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival where he has set new standards in interpretation as an opera conductor with recent performances including Rusalka, Der Rosenkavalier, Fidelio, Die Liebe der Danae, Aribert Reimann’s opera Lear and Richard Strauss’ Salome, with which he made festival history in 2018. In 2020 he conducted Strauss’ Elektra on the 100th Anniversary of its premiere, and was during that same period awarded the Ruby Festival Brooch. Franz Welser-Möst returned to Salzburg to conduct further performances of Elektra in 2021. In 2022 he conducted Giacomo Puccini’s Il Trittico and next summer he will lead a new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth.
Franz Welser-Möst has been the recipient of a number of major honours and awards. He is Honorary Member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, winner of the Vienna Philharmonic’s Honorary Ring, 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, including the recording of Der Rosenkavalier and Salome from the Salzburg Festival, and many of his recordings have won international awards. In the summer of 2022, the Vienna Philharmonic released a live recording of a concert at the Salzburg Festival with Richard Strauss’ Rosenkavalier-Suite and Alpine Symphony in its Special Annual Edition series.
In 2020, the Cleveland Orchestra founded its own streaming platform: adella.live. Various recordings from Severance Hall are available as stream, download and CD. CDs with compositions by Richard Strauss and with works by the American composer George Walker have just been released on the Cleveland Orchestra’s own CD label.
Franz Welser-Most is managed by Enticott Music Management in association with IMG Artists.
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Current as at 04 Jan 2023, please destroy all previously dated materials.
CONTACT
Kathryn Enticott
General Manager
T: +44 (0) 20 7957 5834
M: +44 (0) 7771600304
kathryn@enticottmusicmanagement.com
Juliette Vix
Artist Manager
T: +44 (0) 20 7957 5895
jvix@imgartists.com
Franz Welser-Möst is managed in association with IMG Artists
Artist News
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...
Franz Welser-Möst wins ECHO Klassik Award for Music DVD Recording of the Year
Congratulations to Franz Welser-Möst, whose DVD recording of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier has been awarded an ECHO Klassik award in the category of Music DVD Recording of the Year. The awards will be presented at a ceremony at the Konzerthaus Berlin on 18 October 2015....
Rave Reviews for Franz Welser-Möst at the Helm of Salzburg’s New Fidelio
Franz Welser-Möst’s work on the podium for the Salzburg Festival’s new production of Beethoven’s revolutionary operatic hymn to freedom, Fidelio, has been garlanded with praise this week. Claus Guth’s new staging has provoked considerable critical debate, but the...