Lutz Köhler
Prof. Lutz Köhler Conducting
Lutz Köhler studied bassoon, piano, composition and conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. As a bassoonist, he has recorded numerous albums and given master classes worldwide.
As a conductor, Lutz Köhler has worked with numerous German orchestras, including the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Radiosinfonieorchester Frankfurt and Saarbrücken, the Hamburger Symphoniker, and the Nürnberger Symphoniker. He has also conducted at festivals, including the Luzern-Festival, Menuhin-Festival Gstaad, Berlin, Dresden, Rheingau, Prix Italia, Brno, Aldeburgh (GB), Belgrad, Sevilla, Miami, and others.
He has guest conducted in the USA, Italy, Switzerland, France, Scandinavia, Holland, Poland, Great Britain, former Yugoslavia, Spain, New Zealand, Asia, South America, Australia, and more, as well as in the music centers of Germany such as Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, Stuttgart, and Cologne.
He has recorded 10 CDs with the brass ensemble of Hessischer Rundfunk, which were highly praised by the press, both nationally and internationally. He also produced works by Mozart with the Saarländischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin.
For 25 years, he served as one of the directors of the European Union Youth Orchestra, and he remains an honorary musical advisor to the orchestra. Lutz Köhler was Chief Guest Conductor and Director of the Orchestra and is now an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music London. He is an honorary member of the Deutscher Musikrat, served for many years as an advisor and jury chairman at the International Music Competition of the ARD in Munich, and is a sought-after jury member at international competitions. A significant number of his former students hold outstanding positions in the music world.
From 1999 until his retirement in 2013, he was the conductor of the Symphony Orchestra and Professor of Conducting at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Previously, he was a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover for 25 years, many of which he served as vice president. In 2009, he was appointed professor of conducting at ESMUC Barcelona. The Latvian Academy of Music in Riga has awarded him an honorary professorship title.
Concerts with the Symphony Orchestra of the UdK Berlin were an integral part of Berlin's concert life. Highlights included performances of Britten's "War Requiem" at the Philharmonie, a tour with Handel's "Messiah" to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and performances in Potsdam and Berlin, the opening of the Mendelssohn Festival Weeks at the Berlin Cathedral with his Second Symphony ("Hymn of Praise"), as well as the annual opening of the "crescendo" festival - for example, with Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 at the Berlin Cathedral. In recent years, invitations have led him to concerts in Spain, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Austria, among others.
His performance with the JONDE (Joven Orquestra Nacional de Espana) at the Konzerthaus Berlin with Bruckner's Fourth Symphony was highly praised by the press: "With dynamic strong differentiation and the building of long tension phases, the players are like putty in the hands of their conductor Lutz Köhler..." (Der Tagesspiegel/Barbara Eckle). "I haven't heard such swinging Bruckner in a long time... please continue with interesting Bruckner like this!" (Kulturradio rbb/Clemens Goldberg).
Lutz Köhler's repertoire covers the entire range from Baroque to contemporary music.