Elisabeth Fuchs, conductor
Elisabeth Fuchs, born in Austria, is chief conductor of the Salzburg Philharmonic, with whom she performs a wide-ranging repertoire in the Salzburg Festival Hall, the Felsenreitschule and the Great Hall of the Mozarteum (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Ravel, Arvo Pärt, Kurt Schwertsik and John Adams). She has performed with her orchestra several times at the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Brucknerhaus Linz, the Congress Center Villach, the Kurhaus Wiesbaden and the Tonhalle Düsseldorf. The highlights of the 2019/20 season include Orff's Carmina Burana, Mahler's 1st & 5th, Elgar's Enigma Variations, Bruckner's 4th, Schubert's Great C major Symphony, Mozart's last symphonies, Dvorak's 8th, Brahms' 2nd and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. In autumn 2018, Elisabeth Fuchs and the Salzburg Philharmonic undertook a China tour for the first time with Beethoven's Pastorale as the main work.
Since 2012, Elisabeth Fuchs has worked regularly with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, and since 2014 she has conducted the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra in the Lisinski Hall almost every season. In 2013 she made her debut with the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and was invited back again, as was her debut with the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra in 2014. Elisabeth Fuchs has performed at the Hamburg Musikhalle, the Dortmund Konzerthaus and the Rheingau Music Festival and conducted the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Tonkünstler Orchestra Lower Austria and the NDR Radio Philharmonic Hanover. In 2018 she made her debut with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the HR Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt and the Munich Symphony Orchestra. In 2019 she recorded the CD “Volkslied reloaded” for Sony Music with the Munich Radio Orchestra and Quadro Nuevo.
At the Prague State Opera, Elisabeth Fuchs made her debut with the Magic Flute, at the Salzburg Festival she conducted Shostakovich's Das neue Babylon as well as the Mozart operas Bastien and Bastienne and Der Schauspieldirektor, which were recorded on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon.
2017 debuted Elisabeth Fuchs in Israel at the Beer Sheva Sinfonietta. She also directed the Hamburger Symphoniker, the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Sinfonieorchester Erfurt, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie Herford and the Dortmunder Philharmoniker.
Elisabeth Fuchs loves to push musical boundaries. This has led to special music and performance projects with Quadro Nuevo, Stjepan Hauser (2CELLOS), David Orlofsky Trio, Klazz Brothers, Henry Threadgill, Pacho Flores, Andreas Martin Hofmeir, Julia Hagen, Benjamin Schmid, Olga Scheps, Ferhan and Ferzan Önder, Fabio Martino, Sergej Malov, Yury Revich, Alina Pogostkina, Daniel Müller-Schott, Per Arne Glorvigen, Nikolai Tokarev, Rolando Villazón, Evelyn Huber, Deborah-Henson-Conant, Iris Berben, Maria Bill, Monika Ballwein, Conchita Wurst, Cornelius Obonya, Philipp Hochmair, Frederic Böhle, Hans Sigl, Urbanatix, Herbert Pixner, Monika Gruber and Salut Salon.
A big concern for her is the participatory music education, which leads to large choir projects with 300 contributors, education projects for children, adolescents and students, for which Elisabeth Fuchs in the year 2007 the children's festival Salzburg, 2013 the apprentice concerts in the big festival house and 2018 for students the lecture "UV Musicology interactive including concert experiences" initiated. From 2009 to 2018 she was the Artistic Director of the Salzburger Kulturvereinigung.
Elisabeth Fuchs studied orchestral conducting, choir conducting, oboe, school music and mathematics at the Mozarteum Salzburg University, at the Paris Lodron University Salzburg and at the Cologne Conservatory. Musically influential people for their artistic career were Balduin Sulzer, Franz Welser-Möst, Herbert Böck, Karl Kamper and Dennis Russell Davies. 2005 became Elisabeth Fuchs for her outstanding achievements with the Irma von Troll Borostyáni Prize, 2007 with the Federal Decoration of Honor of the Federal Ministry of Education, Art and Culture, 2017 with the Salzburg Prize of the Cultural Fund of the City of Salzburg and 2018 with the Honorary Cup of the City of Salzburg awarded.
She lives with her two children in Salzburg.