Donald Runnicles is concurrently the General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB) and Chief Conductor of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO). Mr. Runnicles also holds two additional titles: He is Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming; and Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
The appointment of Donald Runnicles to the DOB in September 2009 joined one of today’s leading Wagnerians conductors to one of the world’s premiere repertory opera companies with a long and grand Wagnerian tradition. As its General Music Director, Mr. Runnicles has the principal responsibility for the musical forces of this historic company which produces on average more than two hundred performances of over twenty-five operas each season, and of which he personally leads approximately forty performances of both operas and concerts. In the 2011-12 season, his third as the GMD, he leads new productions of Verdi’s Don Carlo (Marco Arturo Marelli), Janácek’s Jenufa (Christof Loy), and Wagner’s Lohengrin (Kasper Holten); and revivals of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Tannhäuser, and Tristan und Isolde, Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, and Bernstein’s Candide.
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read full bioDonald Runnicles is concurrently the General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB) and Chief Conductor of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO). Mr. Runnicles also holds two additional titles: He is Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson, Wyoming; and Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
The appointment of Donald Runnicles to the DOB in September 2009 joined one of today’s leading Wagnerians conductors to one of the world’s premiere repertory opera companies with a long and grand Wagnerian tradition. As its General Music Director, Mr. Runnicles has the principal responsibility for the musical forces of this historic company which produces on average more than two hundred performances of over twenty-five operas each season, and of which he personally leads approximately forty performances of both operas and concerts. In the 2011-12 season, his third as the GMD, he leads new productions of Verdi’s Don Carlo (Marco Arturo Marelli), Janácek’s Jenufa (Christof Loy), and Wagner’s Lohengrin (Kasper Holten); and revivals of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Tannhäuser, and Tristan und Isolde, Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, and Bernstein’s Candide.
As Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, Mr. Runnicles has literally returned home. A Scot by birth, he conducts five weeks of the orchestra’s subscription concerts in various cities in Scotland and northern England, and also anchors the BBC SSO’s substantial presence at the UK’s two largest festivals, the Edinburgh International Festival and London Proms. In October 2010 he also led the BBC SSO on a six-city tour to Germany and Austria, culminating with the orchestra’s first appearance in Vienna’s Konzerthaus.
Guest conducting appearances this season include the Berlin Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, in addition to his commitments in Atlanta and Jackson.
For seventeen seasons, Mr. Runnicles was Music Director of the San Francisco Opera (1992-2008), having unexpectedly won the job after conducting two Wagner Ring cycles due to the withdrawal of a conducting colleague in 1990. During his long tenure, he led more than sixty productions in over 350 performances, which included such company and national highlights as the world premieres of John Adams’ Dr. Atomic and Conrad Souza’s Les Liaisons dangereuses, as well as U.S. premieres of Olivier Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise and Aribert Reimann’s Lear, among other highlights. Mr. Runnicles and the company made several commercial CD and DVD recordings and were often seen on national and international television. At the close of his tenure, he was given the San Francisco Opera Medal, the Company’s highest honor, previously given to such luminaries as Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne, Plácido Domingo and Sir Charles Mackerras. Although no longer its music director, Mr. Runnicles returns to the San Francisco Opera in May/June 2011 to conduct three cycles of a new Wagner Der Ring des Nibelungen directed by Francesca Zambello, thus returning to the repertoire and event in which his relationship with the company began.
He is equally at home in symphonic repertoire, and is sought after by the world’s finest symphony orchestras. He has been a Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony for a decade and also maintains regular and continuing relationships with such esteemed orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Since 2007, he has been Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival—which celebrates its 50th Anniversary in 2011—a unique and inspiring symphonic festival which gathers professional players from among many of North America’s greatest orchestras for seven weeks each summer to play in the natural beauty of the Grand Tetons. Other orchestras which he conducts include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), NDR Sinfonieorchester (Hamburg), Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), and Bavarian Radio Orchestra (Munich), to name but a few.
Mr. Runnicles was born in Scotland and educated there and at Cambridge. He began his career in Mannheim, Germany. He made his North American debut in 1988 conducting Berg’s Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera, and in 1989 became General Music Director of the City of Freiburg for three years, and to which he returned in 2010 to help honor and celebrate the Freiburg orchestra’s centennial. In 1990, after two Ring cycles at San Francisco Opera, he was invited to become its Music Director, an appointment that began two years later. He has conducted at leading summer festivals internationally including Bayreuth, Salzburg, Glyndebourne, Tanglewood and Ravinia. Long associated with the city of Vienna, he conducted many titles and performances for the city’s various theaters including new productions of Billy Budd and Die Tote Stadt at the Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna premieres of The Fiery Angel and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Volksoper, and most recently a new and highly acclaimed Vienna premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Death in Venice at the Theater an der Wien.
Mr. Runnicles' recordings with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra include a critically acclaimed concert disc with soprano Christine Brewer singing Strauss and Wagner; Mozart’s Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Also in his discography are a highly praised live recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde released in 2007 by Warner Classics, with Christine Brewer and John Treleaven; Britten’s Billy Budd with Bo Skovhus, Neil Shicoff and the Vienna State Opera; a GRAMMY-nominated recital of German Romantic opera arias with tenor Ben Heppner; Ring excerpts with the Dresden Staatskapelle; Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel; Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi; and a disc with soprano Jane Eaglen of works by Strauss, Wagner and Berg.
Among the awards bestowed upon him are the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and honorary degrees from Edinburgh University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and most recently in February 2011, an honorary doctorate from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
Last updated February 2012. Contact Opus 3 Artists for the most up-to-date version.
