Christoph Eschenbach

Born in Breslau in 1940, in the city that is now Wrocław, Christoph Eschenbach returned to it in 2024 as artistic director of the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic. His first piano teacher was Wallydore Eschenbach; he went on to Hans-Otto Schmidt-Neuhaus for piano and Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg for conducting, won the ARD Competition in 1962 and the Clara Haskil Competition in 1965, and was recording for Deutsche Grammophon by twenty-four. George Szell and Herbert von Karajan were his mentors in conducting. His posts have included the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, the Houston Symphony from 1988 to 1999, the NDR Symphony in Hamburg, the Orchestre de Paris from 2000 to 2010, the Philadelphia Orchestra from 2003 to 2008, the National Symphony Orchestra and Kennedy Center in Washington from 2010 to 2017, and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin from 2019 to 2023. A recording made with Midori and the NDR orchestra took a Grammy in 2014. He has conducted the Sofia Philharmonic. He trained at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, made his conducting debut in 1972 with Bruckner's Third Symphony and was chief conductor of the Rhineland-Palatinate Philharmonic from 1979 to 1981, later directing the Ravinia and Schleswig-Holstein festivals. A complete Mahler cycle and the Schnittke violin concertos with Gidon Kremer are among his larger recording projects, and a Saariaho disc with the Orchestre de Paris won the MIDEM jury award in 2009. France made him a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, and he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2015.