Guest ArtistsJohannes Debus, conductor

Johannes Debus has been Music Director of the Canadian Opera Company (COC) since 2009, having been appointed immediately following his debut.

The 2018-19 season includes Mr. Debus’s debuts with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and Milwaukee Symphony, and return engagements with the Frankfurt Radio, Toronto and San Diego Symphonies. In the summer of 2019 Mr. Debus makes his Opera Santa Fe debut conducting Jenůfa.

Highlights of the 2017-18 season included a return to the Metropolitan Opera conducting The Tales of Hoffmann; debuts with the Seattle, Oregon and Kansas City Symphonies and the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa; and a return to the Bregenz Festival conducting the Austrian premiere of Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci with the Vienna Symphony.

Mr. Debus conducts regularly at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Staatsoper unter den Linden Berlin and Frankfurt Opera; he has appeared in new productions at English National Opera and Opéra National de Lyon. He made his debut at the BBC Proms with Britten’s Sinfonia in 2014, and conducted a new production of The Tales of Hoffmann at the 2015 Bregenz Festival.

As guest conductor, he has appeared at several international festivals such as the Biennale di Venezia and Schwetzingen Festivals, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Lincoln Center Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Suntory Summer Festival and Spoleto Festival. He has appeared with The Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia in London.

Johannes Debus graduated from the Hamburg Conservatoire before being engaged as répétiteur and, subsequently, Kapellmeister by Frankfurt Opera where he acquired an extensive repertoire from Mozart to Thomas Adès. At home in both contemporary music and the core repertoire, he has conducted a wide range of world premieres and works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He has collaborated with internationally-acclaimed ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien and Musikfabrik. He enjoys an ongoing relationship with the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.