Whether as an opera conductor, orchestra director, festival director or book author: Ingo Metzmacher is consistently committed to music, especially that of the 20th and 21st centuries. Making the new audible and the familiar audibly new: This has been his passion since the beginning of his multifaceted career.

Ingo Metzmacher was general music director of the Hamburg State Opera from 1997 to 2005 and subsequently chief conductor at the National Opera in Amsterdam as well as chief conductor and artistic director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2007 to 2010. He has been artistic director of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen since 2016.

He is a frequent guest conductor with major orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Ensemble Modern, as well as at opera houses and festivals such as the Vienna State Opera, the Opéra national de Paris, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Salzburg Festival and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

Ingo Metzmacher’s extensive discography includes recordings of his legendary Hamburg New Year’s Eve concerts from 1999 to 2004 under the title Who Is Afraid of 20th Century Music?, the complete recording of Hartmann’s symphonies with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the live recording of the world premiere of Henze’s Ninth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Messiaen’s Eclairs sur l’Au-delà with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He recently released two albums with the Ensemble Modern: Andre’s cycle riss and the album Beschenkt with 40 miniatures to mark the ensemble’s 40th anniversary.

In his book Curtain up! Discovering and Experiencing Opera, Metzmacher presents operas from four centuries and explains the creation of a music theatre production. He is also the author of the book Don’t Be Afraid of New Sounds, published in 2005, a passionate plea for pioneering composers such as Luigi Nono, Charles Ives, Olivier Messiaen, Arnold Schönberg, Edgard Varèse, Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage.