Stefan Vladar (Austria) ← Back to list
Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (mdw) (Austria)
Stefan Vladar can look back on a decades-long career as a pianist and conductor that has taken him to all of the world's major music centres. He has been General Music Director at Lübeck Theatre since the 2019/20 season. After winning the International Beethoven Piano Competition in 1985, Stefan Vladar's career as a pianist was set in stone.
He has worked with some of the greatest conductors of his time, such as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Neville Marriner, Yehudi Menuhin, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, Christian Thielemann, Sandor Vegh and Jaap van Zweden and orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Camerata Salzburg and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. A recording contract with the major label Sony Classical and guest appearances at major festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Rheingau Music Festival, the Musikfest Bremen, Ravinia Festival Chicago, Mostly Mozart Festival New York, the London Proms and the Edinburgh Festival characterised the first decades of his career.
However, the desire to step beyond the boundaries of the piano soon matured and, alongside his career as a pianist, he began to carefully build up his conducting career. His position as principal conductor in Graz was followed by eleven years as principal conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, with which Stefan Vladar repeatedly toured the world as soloist and conductor and conducted two cycles at the Vienna Konzerthaus. During this time, he has worked as a guest conductor with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the Svetlanov Orchestra Moscow, among others. Since the 2019/20 season, Stefan Vladar has been General Music Director and currently also Opera Director at the Lübeck Theatre, where he has already conducted numerous orchestra concerts as well as more than 20 operas by Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Britten and Berg amongst many others. His work as a pianist and conductor is documented on more than 40 CDs. Stefan Vladar has been the artistic director of the Neuberger Kulturtage for more than 30 years, has also been a professor of piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna since 1999 and has been awarded the Golden Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria.