This conductor’s musical focus is equally on the Baroque, Classical and Classical Modern periods. In addition, Andreas Stoehr devotes himself with great passion to the discovery and revival of opera scores that have not been performed since their time of composition or are considered lost.
About the artist
Conductor with many main points of interest
Enlarging the picture of a modern conductor, Andreas Stoehr has developed rare competence in combining diverse aesthetic streams and styles. His passionate and candid approach to works in an extraordinarily broad repertoire resulted in performances highly acclaimed by public, press, and colleagues.
While reading music history at the University of Vienna, Stoehr studied piano and conducting at the Vienna Music Conservatory under Karajan-assistant Reinhard Schwarz. Simultaneously confronted with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the movement toward historically informed performances, Stoehr’s career path led him to synthesize these diametrically opposed components.
Preceding his appointment as Music Director of the Opéra Comique in Paris, engagements in Vienna, Graz, and Prag laid the groundwork in standard operatic repertoire. In Paris, Stoehr could intensify his affinity for Mozart operas while dedicating himself to the standards of the French opera repertoire of Bizet, Ravel, Poulenc and Offenbach. He also established a thriving home for modern opera, giving the French premieres of both Luciano Chailly’s La Cantatrice chauve and Victor Ullmann’s The Emperor of Alantis.
As principal conductor of the Theater St. Gallen, he premiered operas by Mozart, Verdi, Offenbach, Puccini, Ravel, Zemlinsky, and the Swiss premieres of Schilling’s Mona Lisa and Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire.
The intense collaboration with highly prestigious stage directors reinforced his understanding of modern music theater as a true partnership between music and theatrical values, resulting in highly acclaimed productions of Wagner, Debussy, R. Strauss, Schönberg and Berg.
During his long relationship with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Andreas Stoehr took charge of a critically acclaimed cycle of the Monteverdi trilogy on original instruments with Christof Loy. In subsequent performances of Scarlatti, Handel, and Mozart he successfully introduced historically informed playing techniques into productions with non-specialized orchestras.
Stoehr’s dual interest in researching and performing continued into his career. He created the first modern performance of Meyerbeer’s Emma di Resburgo, with a European broadcast performance from the Vienna Konzerthaus. He has unearthed and performed operatic rarities including Schubert’s last opera Der Graf von Gleichen and the Prague version of Gluck’s Ezio, which was issued as a world premiere recording by Coviello Classics. He also made his debut at the Grand Théâtre de Genève with Cavalli’s La Calisto and the Oper Leipzig with Peter Konwitschny’s production of Così fan tutte.
Andreas Stoehr enjoys a growing reputation in the Nordic countries where he has appeared at the Royal Danish Opera with Lucio Silla and The Magic Flute, as well as the Royal Swedish Opera in repertoire ranging from Händel’s Serse to Berg’s Wozzeck. Two recordings with works by Swedish composers Amanda Maier and Andrea Tarrodi were produced for the label dBproductions.
Andreas Stoehr’s symphonic repertoire ranges from baroque music through living composers. He performed with the Vienna Symphony, Munich Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre Nationale d’Ile de France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, L’Orchestre National de Lille, Residenz
The Austrian-born Andreas Stoehr is dynamic, multi-faceted member of the current generation of European conductors, who combine the well-rounded experience of a German 'Kapellmeister' with application of recent discoveries in historical performance. He studied piano and conducting at the Conservatoire and music history at the University in Vienna, and made his conducting debut with the Vienna Chamber Opera while still a student.
After graduating, he was engaged at the Graz Opera in Austria, initially as pianist, then as head coach and conductor, and appeared as a guest conductor at the State Oper Prague. Four years as Music Director of the Opéra Comique in Paris were followed by an appointment as principal conductor at St.Gallen, Switzerland. From 2001 to 2009, Stoehr conducted a broad repertoire at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf, Germany, where he drew international attention with his Monteverdi trilogy (L'orfeo, Ulisse, Poppea), on historical instruments. Career highlights include a concert project with the Liège Philharmonic, conducting the complete orchestral works of Robert Schumann.
A passionate interest of Andreas Stoehr is the discovery and performance of opera scores which have not been heard since their original performances, or which have been considered "lost". Through his efforts, Schubert's last opera "Der Graf von Gleichen" was heard for the first time at the Styriarte Festival in Austria in 1997 in the reconstructed version of Richard Dünser. The Prague version of Christoph Willibald Gluck's Opera "Ezio" was performed and appeared as a world premiere recording in 2007. 2015 saw the release of a recording in the Vienna Konzerthaus, documenting the first performance since the 1820s of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Italian operatic masterpiece "Emma di Resburgo".
Two recordings with db-productions Sweden were nominated for the Swedish Classical Grammy Award: works of the young Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi with the Västeras Sinfonietta in 2015, and the world- premiere studio recording of rediscovered works by Amanda Meier-Röntgen (1853 - 1893) in 2016.
As guest conductor, Maestro Stoehr has appeared with the Vienna Symphony, NTO Tonkünstler, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Munich Symphony, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, L'Orchestre National de Lille, Residence Orchestra Den Haag, Orkest van het Oosten, het Brabants Orkest, the Sofia Philharmonic, the orchestras of Hannover, Braunschweig, Duisburg, Halle and Graz, the L'Orchestre de Chambre de Genève and the Kammerakademie Potsdam.
Appearances at Festivals include the Styriarte Festival, Klangbogen Vienna, Festival de Musique Montreux-Vevey and guest engagements for opera productions in Lucerne, Munich, Nationale Reisopera Netherlands, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, The Royal Opera Copenhagen and the Royal Opera Stockholm, the Opera Leipzig and the Grand Théâtre in Geneva.
Between 2012 and 2019 Andreas Stoehr was Intendant and conductor of a summer open air Operetta Festival, “Schlossfestspiele Langenlois”, where he successfully established a contemporary operetta style. In the same year he returned as a professor to his Alma Mater in Vienna, leading the conducting class and the orchestra of the Music ans Arts University of the City of Vienna (MuK).
He is highly regarded as a guest conductor in academic circles and has led projects with the university orchestras of Porto (Portugal), and the universities of Wisconsin and Yale in the United States.
