Guest ArtistsJun Märkl, conductor

Jun Märkl is a highly-respected interpreter of both symphonic and operatic Germanic repertoire; he is also known for his idiomatic explorations of the French impressionists. His long-standing relationships with the state operas of Vienna, Berlin, Munich and Semperoper Dresden have been complemented by his directorships of the Nationaltheater Mannheim (1994-2000), Orchestre National de Lyon (2005-11), MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig (2007-12) and the Basque National Orchestra (2014-17).

Mr. Märkl has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Munich, Hamburg and Oslo philharmonics, the Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal and Melbourne orchestras, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Orchestre de Paris, among others.

Mr. Märkl has an extensive discography; among the more than 50 of his CD releases, he has recorded the complete Schumann symphonies with the NHK Symphony, Mendelssohn and Wagner with the MDR, Ravel, Messiaen and a nine-CD recording of Debussy with Lyon – the latter recording honored by the French Ministry of Culture in 2012 with the “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.”

Jun Märkl’s father was a distinguished concertmaster and his mother a solo pianist. Born in Munich, Mr. Märkl studied at the Musikhochschule in Hannover, with Sergiu Celibidache in Munich and Gustav Meier in Michigan. In 1986 he won the conducting competition of the Deutsche Musikrat, and a year later he won a scholarship from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to study at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.