Donald Runnicles

In season 2009/2010 Donald Runnicles returned to Europe to become the principal artistic leader of two European institutions. In September 2009 he begins as the General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB), the German capital's leading opera company, and as Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Mr Runnicles simultaneously 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. Throughout the season, he divides his time between his two new posts at the DOB and the BBC Scottish Symphony, returning for four weeks to the Atlanta Symphony.

Mr Runnicles ended last season with a farewell to the San Francisco Opera, where he had been Music Director since 1992. During his seventeen year tenure there, he conducted more than 60 productions in over 350 performances. At the close of his tenure, he was fittingly awarded the San Francisco Opera Medal, the highest honour offered by the Company, and previously given to such luminaries as Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne, Placido Domingo and Charles Mackerras.

Mr Runnicles began the 09/10 season conducting a new production for Vienna's Theatre an der Wien of Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. Interspersed with it were his premiere performances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB) of Tannhäuser. Symphonic guest engagements included a return to the Berlin Philharmonic where is a regular guest conductor, and the Munich Philharmonic. The season concluded with a return to the San Francisco Opera for performances of Die Walküre, before taking up summer residence in Jackson, Wyoming for the Grand Teton Music Festival. Highlights of last season at the DOB included Der Rosenkavalier – a staple of Mr Runnicles' extensive repertoire – Manon Lescaut and two complete Wagner Ring cycles. He also led Brahms’ Eines Deutsches Requiem with the Atlanta Symphony and the Berlin Philharmonic, both performances featuring the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Donald Runnicles led the internationally-acclaimed world premiere of John Adams's Dr Atomic in San Francisco in 2005.

Maestro Runnicles was born in Scotland and educated there and at Cambridge. He began his career in Mannheim, Germany, 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. After two Ring cycles at San Francisco Opera in 1990, he was invited to become Music Director.

Donald Runnicles' recordings with the Atlanta Symphony include a critically acclaimed concert disc with soprano Christine Brewer singing Strauss and Wagner; Mozart Requiem, Orff Carmina Burana, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Also in his discography are a highly praised live recording of Wagner Tristan und Isolde released in 2007 by Warner Classics, with Christine Brewer and John Treleaven; Britten 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 Hänsel und Gretel; Bellini I Capuleti e i Montecchi; and a disc with soprano Jane Eaglen of works by Strauss, Wagner and Berg.

Mr Runnicles has ongoing musical relationships with some of the finest orchestras and opera companies in the USA and Europe. Among those in are the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Chicago Symphony and the New World Symphony. He is a frequent guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, North German Radio Orchestra Hamburg (NDR) and Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Munich. He appears annually in the UK at both the BBC London Proms and the Edinburgh Festival, and each year he works at the Vienna State Opera. He has also led productions in the opera houses of Amsterdam, Berlin, Cologne, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Milan, Munich, Paris and Zurich.

Among his awards are the OBE and an honorary degree from Edinburgh University.