Michael Sanderling

Michael Sanderling, a German musician born in 1967 in East Berlin, maintains an active presence as both cellist and conductor across Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. He first built a reputation as a virtuoso performer on the cello before turning to conducting later in his career. Raised in a musical household, he is the son of the distinguished conductor Kurt Sanderling and the accomplished double bassist Barbara Wagner. At the age of five he began cello instruction, and in 1978 he entered the Spezialschule für Musik Berlin to study under Matthias Pfaender. Upon completing his studies there in 1984, he continued at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik with Josef Schwab and also pursued private lessons with William Pleeth, Yo-Yo Ma, and additional master cellists. His professional career opened in 1987 when he joined the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra as principal cellist, a post he later held with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra between 1994 and 2006. While occupying those orchestral positions he also taught at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik, the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, and the Hochschule der Künste Bern. His first appearance on the podium came in 2000 with the Kammerorchester Berlin; three years afterward he was named principal conductor of the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie. Beginning in 2006 he additionally led the Kammerakademie Potsdam, resulting in a 2008 recording of Shostakovich’s chamber symphonies. In 2010 he retired from the cello to devote himself entirely to conducting and pedagogy. Between 2011 and 2019 he served as chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic, during which time he recorded the complete symphonies of both Beethoven and Shostakovich. In 2021 he assumed the chief conductorship of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, guiding the ensemble on tours through Europe and Asia in the 2022 season and releasing a recording of Brahms’s symphonies on the Warner Classics label in 2023.