Michael Wendeberg

Classical repertoire – from Bach to Boulez – comes to conductor and pianist Michael Wendeberg with just as much ease as his dedicated work with new music. At the start of the 2025/26 season, he conducted at the Klangspuren Schwaz festival before returning to Frankfurt Opera with a revival of Vito Žuraj’s Blühen. In the second half of the season, he will conduct the world premiere of Sarah Nemtsov’s Wir (We) at Theater Dortmund, staged by Eva-Maria Höckmayr. He also performed with Klangforum Wien in Tongyeong, conducted the Remix Ensemble in Porto, and led Hans Zender’s Winterreise with Julian Prégardien and Ensemble Modern. Further he returned to the Slovenian Philharmonic in Ljubljana, Villach and Maribor with Béla Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin and works by Márton Illés, Alex Hren and Isabel Mundry. As a pianist, he played Johannes Brahms’ entire solo works in Berlin in early 2026 and all of Pierre Boulez’s solo works at the Pierre Boulez Saal in late 2025. Michael Wendeberg has conducted renowned orchestras and ensembles including WDR Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, MDR Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Ensemble intercontemporain, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Basel Sinfonietta, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and Staatskapelle Berlin. 

In 2022, Michael Wendeberg made his debut with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra with Claude Debussy’s Jeux and the world premiere of Isabel Mundry’s Viola Concerto with Nils Mönkemeyer. In 2023 he stood in for Daniel Barenboim at both the piano and the conductor’s desk in concerts with works by Mozart, Boulez and Manoury with the Boulez Ensemble in Berlin and at the Philharmonie de Paris. He has made guest appearances at the Lucerne Festival, Munich Biennale, Beethovenfest Bonn, Bregenz Festival, Venice Biennale, ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Ultraschall Berlin Festival, Acht Brücken Festival Cologne and Klangspuren Schwaz as well as at Wien Modern. He served as Music Director of the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva from 2011 to 2018. 

Michael Wendeberg’s opera repertoire ranges from Handel’s Orlando to Mozart, Beethoven, Donizetti, Verdi, Bizet, Puccini, Strauss, Wagner, and Britten, and includes numerous world premieres. From 2014 to 2017, he conducted several series of Die Zauberflöte at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, as well as a new production of Aribert Reimann’s Gespenstersonate. In 2022, he gave his debut at the Semperoper Dresden with the world premiere of Torsten Rasch’s Die andere Frau. From 2016 to 2023, he was Erster Kapellmeister at the Bühnen Halle (Saale), where he also served as Chief Conductor of the opera from 2020 to 2022. There he conducted premieres of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, among others.

Michael Wendeberg studied piano with Markus Stange, Bernd Glemser, Stefan Litwin and Benedetto Lupo, and conducting with Toshiyuki Kamioka. During this time, he worked as Toshiyuki Kamioka’s assistant at the Wuppertaler Bühnen. After graduating, Michael Wendeberg held positions at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, Lucerne Theatre, and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, where he assisted Daniel Barenboim and guest conductors such as Pierre Boulez and Sir Simon Rattle. As a pianist, Michael Wendeberg has won several national and international piano competitions and performed as a soloist at renowned festivals and with prestigious orchestras under conductors such as Jonathan Nott, Marek Janowski, and Daniel Barenboim. From 2000 to 2005 he was a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain and worked closely with György Kurtag and Pierre Boulez. The Berlin label bastille has released CDs featuring Michael Wendeberg both as a pianist (Boulez’s piano works, 2021) and as a conductor (Sur Incises and Eclat-Multiples, 2025)