Hartmut Haenchen
Hartmut Haenchen is one of the defining conducting personalities with an extensive repertoire in both opera and the concert field. Born in Dresden, he has been Honorary Conductor of the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest since 2023. He has worked at opera houses such as Teatro alla Scala, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Teatro Real Madrid, the Dutch National Opera, the Opernhaus Zürich, the Theater an der Wien, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Teatro La Fenice, the Concertgebouw, LA Opera, the New National Theatre Tokyo, the Opernhaus Zürich, BOZAR Brussels, as well as the Bayreuther Festspiele, the Warsaw Autumn and the Kirishima Festival in Japan. He has also worked with numerous renowned orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Concertgebouw Orchester Amsterdam, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, the Royal Danish Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the PZN in Eindhoven and Maastricht, and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra.
In the 2026/27 season, Hartmut Haenchen will conduct concerts with the Noord Nederlands Orkest featuring works by Johannes Brahms, Dmitri Shostakovich and Johann Sebastian Bach in Groningen, Drachten, Assen and Leeuwarden. Further concerts will take him to the Staatskapelle Halle as well as the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest. The programmes feature works by Siegfried Matthus, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler.
From 1986, Hartmut Haenchen was Chief Conductor of the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest and the Nederlands Kamerorkest as well as General Music Director of the Dutch National Opera. There, he oversaw a wide-ranging opera repertoire from Gluck’s Alceste to Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten. From 1980 to 2014, he also led the Kammerorchester Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, with which numerous award-winning CD and DVD productions were made. His discography includes numerous recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Sony Classical, Pentatone and Philips. Awards for his recordings include the Grand Prix de la Critique as well as the 2011 Diapason d’Or for the DVD of Mahler’s 6th Symphony. In 2017, Hartmut Haenchen was voted “Conductor of the Year” by the magazine Opernwelt, and in 2018 he received the Richard Wagner Prize from the Richard-Wagner-Gesellschaft Leipzig. He is also active as an author of books.
Hartmut Haenchen was initially a member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor and studied conducting and singing at the Hochschule für Musik Dresden. This was followed by assistantships with Pierre Boulez and Herbert von Karajan, as well as further studies with Arvid Jansons and Yevgeny Mravinsky. After working as conductor of the Robert-Franz-Singakademie and the Staatskapelle Halle, he was conductor of the Dresdner Philharmonie from 1973 to 1976 and at the same time a regular guest at the Semperoper Dresden. From 1976 to 1979, he served as General Music Director in Schwerin, before continuing his international career as a freelance conductor.
For his services, Hartmut Haenchen was appointed a Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. He also received the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) as well as the Medal of Honour of the City of Amsterdam.