Deutsch

Born near Frankfurt am Main, Wolfgang Michel was already very interested in symphonic music and the sound of the orchestra during his Guitar studies, which led him to Basel/Switzerland, the U.S., and to private lessons with Andrés Segovia. Through this interest, he discovered conducting to be his great passion. Vytautas Marijosius, his first conducting teacher, as well as Kurt Klippstatter at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford/CT supported him to follow this profession.

Returning to Europe Wolfgang Michel continued his conducting studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg and then at the "Mozarteum" in Salzburg. His teachers were Günther Wich, Jorge Rotter und Michael Gielen. He also visited master classes for conducting with Julius Kalmar, Wolfgang Harrer, Otakar Trhlík, Frantisek Vajnar, Sylvain Cambreling and Jonathan Sternberg.

During his studies he could motivate his fellow students to work with him in different kinds of ensembles. Later on he assisted at the Opera Festival in Bad Hersfeld, coached singers studying their roles and worked with chamber orchestras and small ensembles, also for radio recordings with the Bayerische Rundfunk. Wolfgang Michel won a prize from the Repertory Workshop of Symphonic Workshops Ltd in 1998 and from the Karlovy Vary Fall workshop in 2001.

Meanwhile Wolfgang Michel has made his career mainly in Eastern Europe. He has conducted the Philharmonic of Hradec Králové in Czech many times as well as the Symphony Orchestra of Karlovy Vary/Czech, the Philharmonic Orchestra in Vracta/Bulgaria, the Sudecka Philharmonic in Walbrzych/Poland and the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic in Zlin/Czech. He has also worked at the opera houses of Plovdiv and Burgas in Bulgaria. Mr. Michel has worked with the Symphony Orchestra of Austin in Minnesota/USA and recently with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland in Dublin. In Germany he worked with the Hof Symphonic Orchestra, the Nurnberg Symphonic Orchestra and the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of the Norddeutsche Rundfunk.

Mr. Michel gave his debut in Prague with Bruckner's 6th Symphony. At present Wolfgang Michel lives outside Frankfurt am Main and is a freelance conductor for opera and symphony.

Contact details and further information

E-mail Wolfgang Michel

For further details, see Wolfgang Michel's website