Cornelius Meister

Cornelius Meister has been General Music Director of the Stuttgart State Opera and the Stuttgart State Orchestra since 2018. Previously, he served as General Music Director of the Theatre and Philharmonic Orchestra Heidelberg from 2005 to 2012, Principal Guest Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra Tokyo from 2017 to 2020, and Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna from 2010 to 2018.

With his recordings, he has won the Gramophone Award, the OPUS Klassik Award as Conductor of the Year, the International Classical Music Award, the Diapason d’Or, and the Prize of the German Record Critics’ Award. Under his leadership, the Stuttgart State Orchestra was honoured in 2020 with the Innovation Award of the German Orchestra Foundation.

Known for his broad repertoire, he has performed works by more than 250 composers — as a pianist since his earliest youth and, since 1997, also as a conductor. At the age of 21, he made his debut with Henze’s Pollicino at the Hamburg State Opera, followed by his debut at the Bavarian State Opera at the age of 24. Since 2012 he has conducted at the Vienna State Opera, since 2015 at La Scala in Milan, and since 2019 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 2022, he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival with a new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen.