Biography
An Italian with a strong affinity for the German repertoire. A “melodist by nature” (Der Tagesspiegel), who knows how to convincingly transfer the attention to detail of stylistically informed interpretation practice to the large apparatus. A true orchestral practitioner, moreover, whose artistic creative power is combined with the need for a musical style based on partnership. Antonello Manacorda’s versatility as a conductor lies in the wealth of his musical and cultural influences: Born in Turin into an Italian-French family, educated in Amsterdam and at home in Berlin for many years, Manacorda was a founding member and long-time concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, founded by Claudio Abbado, before studying conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula. Today, Antonello Manacorda can be heard just as frequently in opera productions at the world’s most important opera houses as he can on the podium of leading symphony orchestras. His work centres on the Kammerakademie Potsdam, which he has been Artistic Director of since 2010 and with which he has made a number of award-winning recordings. Antonello Manacorda will retire as Chief Conductor of the ensemble at the end of the 2024/25 season, although he will remain associated with it as Honorary Conductor.
Opera productions will take Antonello Manacorda to the Stuttgart State Opera (Il trovatore), the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), the Zurich Opera (Nozze di Figaro) and the Opéra National de Paris (Pelléas et Mélisande) in the current and upcoming seasons.
In the field of symphonic music, Antonello Manacorda will be a guest conductor with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2024/2025 season. Together with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, he will perform a concert version of Weber’s Freischütz in Potsdam, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Berlin Philharmonie.
In recent seasons, Antonello Manacorda has worked successfully with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the SWR Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has enjoyed great success with his debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (Le Nozze di Figaro), a new production of Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Der Freischütz at the Bavarian State Opera, his debut at the Semperoper Dresden (Der Freischütz) and a new production of Bizet’s Carmen at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
With the Kammerakademie Potsdam, Antonello Manacorda has recorded both a Mendelssohn cycle and a Schubert cycle for Sony Classical, both of which were critically acclaimed. At the ECHO Klassik 2015, the Kammerakademie Potsdam received the prize in the “Orchestra of the Year” category for the cycle of all Schubert symphonies. In October 2022, Antonello Manacorda and the Kammerakademie Potsdam were awarded the OPUS KLASSIK in the same category for their recording of the last Mozart symphonies. Together with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, Antonello Manacorda has been recording the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven since 2022, which have long played a central role in their joint concerts – the complete recording was released in May 2024 by Sony Classical.