Conductor
Biography
Wolfgang Wengenroth is an internationally aspiring conductor. With passion and precision, he draws attention with a vast opera, concert, and ballet repertoire. Born in Bonn, he studied piano and conducting at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Graz, Austria, and at the Musikhochschule Saar in Germany.
In 2023/2024, he opened the season at Malmö Opera House with the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni conducting all performances of the popular Da Ponte opera. This was followed by concerts with Strauss, Berg and Mendelssohn with the Spanish Conservatorio Superior de Musica in Jaen and with Eötvös and Strauss with the Orchestra of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz. He then returned to South America, where he has been a much sought-after guest conductor for many years. After self-arranged concerts with Tomasi, Beethoven and Bruckner with the Orquesta Sinfonica in San Juan, Argentina, he continued his concert tour with an evening of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Max Reger’s Variations and Fugues on a Theme by Mozart op. 132 with the Orquesta Sinfonica in Rosario. After concerts in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, he returns to Argentina, where he is once again a guest at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. With the Orquesta Filarmonica de Buenos Aires, he conducts Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto op. 129 and Edward Elgar’s Symphony No. 2. A concert with Schönberg’s Erwartung is on the program after his return to Europe at the Schönberg Center in Vienna. He will return to Norrköping for a concert with the local Symphony Orchestra for the New Year’s Concert 2025.
In 2002 he followed a call by Kirill Petrenko who made him Korrepetitor at the Komische Oper Berlin where he soon took over conductor’s responsibilities. Petrenko also hired him as an assistant for his Ring production at the Bayreuth Festival. In addition, he worked with Michael Boder (Hamburg State Opera and Ruhrtriennale), Bertrand de Billy (Theater an der Wien) as well as Alejo Pérez (Opéra de Lyon).
This was followed by positions as Kapellmeister at the theaters in Hildesheim-Hannover, Wiesbaden and most recently Mannheim (2016-2019). Additionally, he has performed at various venues such as the Leipzig Opera, the Staatstheater Oldenburg and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe.
He is a frequent and welcome guest on international stages. Engagements lead him regularly to the major opera houses in Scandinavia, Japan and South America: After successful debuts, he received re-invitations to Copenhagen (Magic Flute) Stockholm (Madama Butterfly), Malmö (La Traviata) and Gothenburg (Swan Lake). In addition, he conducted the Magic Flute with the Dutch Reisopera Enschede in Maastricht, Arnheim and Utrecht.
The symphonic field has become an increasingly important focus for Wolfgang Wengenroth in recent years. He conducted numerous performances at German-speaking venues such as the Bern Symphonic Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Hannover, the Kärnten Symphonic Orchestra, the North-West German Philharmonic, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Internationally he conducted concerts in Norrköping, Teheran, Santa Fe as well as in La Paz, Bolivia.
Since his early studies, Wolfgang Wengenroth has developed a great interest in New Music and has conducted numerous concerts with works by Alban Berg, Olivier Messiaen, Erwin Schulhoff, Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varèse and Kurt Weill. He was invited to the WDR Symphony Orchestra as one of the conductors for the world premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Hoch-Zeiten. With the Orquesta Filarmónica of the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires he has repeatedly performed programs with New Music.
Wolfgang Wengenroth has been a professor at the University of Music and Art Graz since 2016. He is also involved in projects for young musicians in Bolivia, Argentina, and Iran, among others.