Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra Music Director
Special friendship with composer Dmitri Shostakovich and his family
Territory: China and special projects
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During his career he conducted all important orchestras as well as at many international opera houses, including Teatro La Fenice Venice, the Bolshoi Theater Moscow, the Mariinski Theater St. Petersburg, L’Opéra de Nice, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin and the Hamburgische Staatsoper. International singers and instrumental soloists with whom he has worked include David Oistrach, Emil Gilels, Gidon Kremer, José van Dam, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Gundula Janowitz, Robert Holl, Rudolf Buchbinder, Natalia Gutman, Sergei Leiferkus, Paul Tortelier, Andrej Hoteev and Walter Berry. He is a regular guest conductor of the Radio Symphony Orchestras in Germany, Principal Guest Conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra Novosibirsk as well as the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. The Osaka Symphony Orchestra, with which Sanderling twice won the local critics’ prize, appointed him “Music Director Laureate for his Lifetime”.
Thomas Sanderling is one of the most important conductors of Russian repertoire nowadays. He is an important musical ambassador in this field. There existed a special friendship between Thomas Sanderling, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich and his family. Having attended Sanderling's Moscow debut, Shostakovitch asked the young musician to conduct the German first performance of his symphonies No. 13 and 14. On the request of the composer Sanderling also made the first German translation of both symphonies’ texts. After this he conducted the premiere CD recording of Shostakovich's "Michelangelo Suite”. Sanderling's premiere CD recordings of Shostakovitch's Song Cycles for Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon was selected as “The Editor's Choice” by the renowned UK music magazine The Gramophone. Several world premieres of Sanderling’s original text versions of song cycles by Dmitri Shostakovich followed, both in concert and as premiere live recordings in Munich with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. In May 2013 Sanderling conducted the world premiere of the last opera by Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg, The Idiot after the novel by Dostoyevsky, at Nationaltheater Mannheim. In October 2013 there were other Shostakovich premieres with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and baritone Gerald Finley.
He was appointed as the music director of Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra in 2017.