Florian Krumpöck

Born in 1978, Florian Krumpöck has been the artistic director and principal conductor of the Sinfonietta Baden since the 2006-2007 season. In autumn 2008 he will assume additional duties as assistant to the new music director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, where among other things he will oversee new productions of d’Albert’s Tiefland and Salomé of Richard Strauss.

The son of a cellist and an art historian, Mr Krumpöck studied from an early age with some of the leading pianists of the day, including Rudolf Buchbinder, Gerhard Oppitz and Elisabeth Leonskaja. After a private performance, none other than Daniel Barenboim pronounced him quite simply “a wonderful pianist,” thus paving the way for a promising international pianistic career.

The sensational reviews which greeted his debut at the Tonhalle in Zurich with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedosejew led to further concert engagements in such leading European music centers as Vienna, Salzburg, Munich and Moscow, as well as in Israel, the USA and China. Highly acclaimed solo recitals at international festivals such as the Bregenz Festival, the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Music Summer at Bad Kissingen further consolidated his pianistic career.

In 2003 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival with a highly praised solo recital and gave his first concert at the Vienna Musikverein.

Since his childhood Florian Kurmpöck has devoted himself to a vast piano repertoire that, besides complete cycles like the Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach and the 32 piano sonatas and the five piano concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven, also encompasses several first performances and world premières (including works by Korngold, Wellesz, Weigl and Schreker). His repertoire also includes such fearsomely difficult works as Max Reger’s Bach Variations and Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrouchka.

Encouraged by his mentor Daniel Barenboim, Mr Krumpöck widened his repertoire to include symphonic works and opera and turned his attentions increasingly to conducting. Internships at the Berlin State Opera (including work on Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov) and at orchestra performances of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Staatskapelle under Barenboim further developed his conducting technique, as did his work as a conducting assistant at the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

These activities led to Mr Krumpöck’s extremely successful performances as guest conductor of the Sinfonietta Baden and the Prussian Chamber Orchestra.

In 2006 his sensational debut with the Jerusalem Symphony, conducting Schumann’s Symphony no. 2, won him international acclaim.

In the current season Florian Krumpöck will conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra for the first time in a New Year’s concert.

He will also appear as guest conductor in Germany, Turkey and Spain.