Thomas Sanderling grew up in St.Petersburg, where his father Kurt Sanderling was conductor of the St.Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. After graduating from the Music School of the Leningrad Conservatory he studied conducting at the Music Academy in East-Berlin. At the age of 24 he became the Music Director of the Halle Opera. At an early age he appeared frequently with the leading East German orchestras and opera houses, including the Dresden Staatskapelle and Leipzig Gewandhaus. He won the Berlin Critics’ Prize for his performances at the Komische Oper.
After Shostakovich heard him with the State Orchestra of Russia, the composer asked him to give the German premieres of his 13th and 14th symphonies and this relationship also saw him make the world premiere recording of ‘The Michelangelo Suite’, Shostakovich’s last orchestral work. This CD led to the assistant work for Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan.
Thomas Sanderling has conducted extensively on the international stage, with orchestras in North America including the National, Dallas, Baltimore and Vancouver Symphonies, in Europe with the Royal Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki Philharmonics, and in the UK the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic. He is also a regular guest conductor of Radio Orchestras in the UK, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
In Japan he won the Grand Prix of the Osaka Critics twice in three years and in 1992 became Music Director of the Osaka Symphoniker. This Orchestra recently awarded Thomas Sanderling with the title Music Director Laureate for Lifetime.
Thomas Sanderling is equally acclaimed for his operatic work. He was Permanent Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin from 1978 to 1983 (when he moved to the West), where through the years he conducted an extensive repertory of operas by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, Verdi, Smetana, Dvorak Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss, etc. Other notable appearances include the Vienna Staatsoper – Magic Flute (after his Vienna debut the Wiener Kurier wrote “….a new conductor from Berlin gave us a Mozart full of mysteries. Astonishing.”), and Marriage of Figaro (first performance after the death of Karl Boehm), and at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Frankfurt, Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Hamburg State Opera. He has also conducted Magic Flute at La Fenice – the last Ponnelle production – and Don Giovanni at the Royal Danish Opera and the Finnish National Opera.
Thomas Sanderling enjoys a strong relationship with the St Petersburg Philharmonic where he has appeared in concert regularly. His CD of Mahler’s 6th Symphony with the orchestra--its first Mahler recording, achieved great success, culminating in a Cannes Classical Award in 1998. His subsequent CDs of the Brahms Symphonies with the Philharmonia achieved similar recognition and attracted critics’ prizes in record magazines throughout the world.
In June 2005 he conducted two CD recordings for Deutsche Grammophon with Shostakovich Premiers, released to a high acclaim of the critics. These CD’s became “Editor’s Choice” in the September 2006 issue of The Gramophone in London.
Thomas Sanderling appeared in recent years with the Vienna Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Montreal Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Tchaikovsky Radio-Symphony Orchestra in Moscow (Mahler 9) and on their tour in Germany (Tchaikovsky 6), the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, and the Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg (Lohengrin). Recently Thomas Sanderling successfully conducted the revival of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Region at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. In May and September 2006 he conducted very successful concerts with MDR Symphonie Orchestra at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and the Philharmonie in Cologne and with The Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio at the Gasteig in Munich.
Future plans include amongst other concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Wiener Symphoniker at the Bregenzer Festspiele, concerts with the Berlin Symphony (BSO) in Berlin, a number of performances of works by Shostakovich at many different orchestras and festivals, further revivals of Mozart’s Magic Flute (Graham Vick Production) and Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk“ at the Bolshoi Theatre, concerts with Tokyo Philharmonia in Tokyo, and performances at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.
May 2010
