Marek Janowski

Conductor Marek Janowski built a durable, Europe-centered trajectory by stepping aside from the high-velocity circuit that dominates musical life. Discontent with the prevalence of regietheater across the continent, he withdrew from the opera house in the early 1990s to devote himself to symphonic repertoire. With the arrival of the new century he took up several orchestral directorships and gradually reentered the operatic sphere.

Born in Warsaw on February 18, 1939, Janowski followed his training with the rigorous nineteenth-century apprenticeship once expected of thoroughly prepared conductors. He spent a year as répétiteur in Aachen, Germany, then two seasons in the same role in Cologne. Beginning in 1964, a two-year tenure in Düsseldorf gave him his first chances to lead performances. After returning to Cologne as first Kapellmeister, he joined Rolf Liebermann’s company in Hamburg. Subsequent leadership posts in Freiburg and Dortmund led to guest engagements in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. By the late 1970s he had begun appearing in American houses, most prominently the Metropolitan Opera as well as Chicago and San Francisco.

In 1984 he became music director of the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique in Paris, later renamed the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Over sixteen seasons he elevated the ensemble’s standards while expanding his command of French repertoire. Apart from a four-year concurrent stint as music director of Cologne’s Gürzenich-Orchester, he concentrated on Paris and sharply reduced his operatic commitments.

An affinity for French composers such as Messiaen, Roussel, d’Indy, and Dutilleux shaped the programs he chose for Monte Carlo. In 2001 he also accepted the Dresden Philharmonic, where a sustained partnership rested on the pledge of a new concert hall. The Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin named him artistic director for life in 2008; he held the post until 2016. He became music director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in 2005, having previously led the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo from 2000 to 2005 and the Dresden Philharmonic from 2001 to 2003. In 2018 the Dresden Philharmonic announced his reappointment as chief conductor beginning in 2019.

His discography features respected recordings of Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau, Penderecki’s The Devils of Loudon, Wagner’s Ring, Euryanthe, Oberon, and Hindemith’s Die Harmonie der Welt. Alongside the symphonies of Roussel, his orchestral discs include Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra and Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3. After suspending opera conducting in the 1990s, Janowski returned to the medium in the 2010s with several Wagner recordings for PentaTone Classics, among them a new Ring Cycle released in 2016.