Bio­gra­phy

Andre­as Hotz is artis­tic direc­tor of Thea­ter Osnabrück. After win­ning pri­zes at the Sir Georg Sol­ti Inter­na­tio­nal Con­duc­tors’ Com­pe­ti­ti­on and the Ger­man Con­duc­tors’ Award, he embar­ked upon a suc­cess­ful care­er. He took up his post in the 2012/2013 sea­son as one of the youn­gest artis­tic direc­tors in the who­le of Ger­ma­ny. The press prai­se his con­duc­ting for its com­bi­na­ti­on of musi­cal ener­gy and ana­ly­ti­cal pre­cisi­on, atten­ti­on to detail and trans­pa­ren­cy. His care­er path has been lined with the diver­se experiences of a clas­si­cal Ger­man “kapell­meis­ter”, with spells as assi­stant con­duc­tor at the Staats­thea­ter Mainz and the Pfalz­thea­ter Kai­sers­lau­tern. He has worked for many years with orche­s­tras inclu­ding the Bre­mer Phil­har­mo­ni­ker, Düs­sel­dor­fer Sym­pho­ni­ker and Mel­bourne Vic­to­ria Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra, and enjoys clo­se rela­ti­ons­hips with several orche­s­tras in Korea. Fol­lowing a high­ly acc­lai­med pro­duc­tion of Mozart’s THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO at the Natio­nal Ope­ra in Seo­ul, he has been invi­ted back regu­lar­ly to con­duct both con­certs and opera.

Along­side a deep com­mit­ment to Clas­si­cal and Roman­tic reper­toire, Andre­as Hotz is incre­a­singly tur­ning his focus to recent­ly unear­t­hed works from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. With ope­ra­tic redis­co­ve­ries of Albé­ric Magnard’s GUERCOEUR (2019), Hans Gál’s LIED DER NACHT (2017), the CD record­ing of which was nomi­na­ted for the Opus Klas­sik pri­ze, and Man­fred Gurlitt’s SOLDATEN (2015), he is for­ging a wider and endu­ring repu­ta­ti­on for the Osnabrück Sym­pho­nier­or­ches­ter as an excel­lent and dyna­mic ensem­ble for ori­gi­nal musi­cal undertakings.

A vigo­rous cham­pion of con­tem­pora­ry music, he regu­lar­ly com­mis­si­ons new works, such as tho­se in recent years from Det­lev Gla­nert, Phil­ipp Maintz and Ele­na Firsova.

Music without borders

As artis­tic direc­tor of Thea­ter Osnabrück and chief con­duc­tor of the Osna­brü­cker Sym­pho­nie­or­ches­ter, Andre­as Hotz has been respon­si­ble for over 20 ope­ra pro­duc­tions sin­ce 2012, con­duc­ting over 175 per­for­man­ces. With huge­ly suc­cess­ful pro­duc­tions such as Busoni‘s DR. FAUST (2018), LOHENGRIN (2016) and a con­cer­tan­te ELEKTRA (2016), he has repeated­ly brought the qua­li­ties of Thea­ter Osnabrück to the atten­ti­on of the broa­der musi­cal world.With the Osna­brü­cker Sym­pho­nie­or­ches­ter as ambassa­dors of “Osnabrück — City of Peace”, he has under­ta­ken nume­rous con­cert tours fos­te­ring inter­na­tio­nal rela­ti­ons to cities inclu­ding Vol­go­grad, Moscow, Kiev and Minsk. This focus will be shar­pe­ned fur­ther in the 2019/2020 sea­son, the 100thanni­ver­s­a­ry of the orches­tra, with works inclu­ding Britten’s War Requi­em. High­lights of the sea­son will be a two-day Beet­ho­ven sym­pho­ny cycle, and Richard Wagner’s Meistersinger.

Signi­fi­cant milestones

Born in the cent­re of Ger­ma­ny in the Rhein-Main regi­on, Andre­as Hotz soon expan­ded his con­duc­ting hori­zons. He spent two suc­cess­ful sea­sons at the Staats­thea­ter Mainz, during which he par­ti­cu­lar­ly  rai­sed the pro­fi­le of the orches­tra in Szymanowski’s KÖNIG ROGER, and direc­ted per­for­man­ces and new pro­duc­tions of TRISTAN UND ISOLDE, TANNHÄUSER and IDOMENEO. Even pri­or to this, he acqui­red a broad spec­trum of ope­ra­tic reper­toire in his post as assi­stant con­duc­tor at the Pfalz­thea­ter Kai­sers­lau­tern, which laid the foun­da­ti­ons for his care­er. This reper­toire inclu­ded modern works such as Peter Max­well-Davies’ THE LIGHTHOUSE, redis­co­ve­ries such as Zemlinsky’s KÖNIG KANDAULES, and also clas­sics such as OTELLO, NORMA and IL TROVATORE. At Thea­ter Osnabrück he final­ly embar­ked upon a sus­tai­ned and endu­ring artis­tic deve­lo­p­ment. He invi­go­ra­ted the con­cert pro­gramming by con­si­der­ab­ly diver­si­fy­ing their reper­toire, set up nume­rous suc­cess­ful con­cert seri­es, and redou­bled the orchestra’s out­re­ach work. Fur­ther­mo­re, he has fos­te­r­ed awa­reness of his­to­ri­cal­ly infor­med per­for­mance prac­ti­ce and the use of ori­gi­nal instruments.

Ear­ly experiences

Andre­as Hotz recei­ved his musi­cal edu­ca­ti­on in Frank­furt, whe­re he was first immer­sed in the world of ope­ra as répé­ti­teur at the Ope­ra House. Soon the­re­af­ter he was appoin­ted pro­fes­sor of con­duc­ting at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Music and Per­forming Arts. A very signi­fi­cant role in his artis­tic deve­lo­p­ment was play­ed by the Con­duc­tors’ Forum of the Ger­man Music Coun­cil, which sup­por­ted him for many years. Through them, he not only for­ged con­ta­cts with nume­rous Ger­man ensem­bles, but also recei­ved las­ting inspi­ra­ti­on from emi­nent con­duc­tors. Pierre Bou­lez and Rein­hard Goe­be­lin par­ti­cu­lar beca­me influ­en­ti­al mentors.

Having suc­cess­ful­ly repla­ced an indis­po­sed con­duc­tor in a per­for­mance of THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO without rehe­ar­sal at the Staats­thea­ter Darm­stadt, the way was paved for a pro­mi­sing care­er. Guest con­duc­tor invi­ta­ti­ons then fol­lo­wed from a num­ber of Ger­man orche­s­tras, from the ope­ra houses in Wies­ba­den and Nürn­berg, and then from Isra­el, Aus­tra­lia, Poland, Rus­sia and Korea. In 2015 he was nomi­na­ted by the publi­ca­ti­on “Opern­welt” for the New Genera­ti­on Con­duc­tor of the Year.

Nume­rous CD record­ings under­line his com­mit­ment to for­got­ten orches­tral lite­ra­tu­re. Record­ings of works by Chris­ti­an Wes­ter­hoff, and the Opus Klas­sik-nomi­na­ted CD of Hans Gál’s LIED DER NACHT testi­fy to this. The DVD record­ing “Beet­ho­ven in Sta­lin­grad” was awar­ded the Ger­man Music Cri­tics’ Award.