Karsten Januschke has established himself in recent years as a distinguished conductor in the international opera and concert world. His engagements take him to opera houses such as the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Semperoper Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Oper Frankfurt, the New National Theatre Tokyo, the Nationaltheater Prag, the Volksoper Wien, the Staatsoper Stuttgart, and the Bregenzer Festspiele, as well as to orchestras such as the MDR-Sinfonieorchester, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, the Budapester Philharmonie, the Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg, the Staatsorchester Darmstadt, and the Ensemble Modern.
In the 2026/27 season, Karsten Januschke will take on the musical direction of four new productions. At the Oper Frankfurt, he will conduct the season opening with Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa, as well as Handel’s Flavio. He will appear at the Oper Burg Gars with Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. At the Hamburgische Staatsoper, he will conduct the world premiere of Gordon Kampe’s Störtebeker.
Karsten Januschke opened the 2025/26 season of the Staatstheater Darmstadt with a staged juxtaposition of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Requiem für einen jungen Dichter and Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel. This was followed by debuts at the Komische Oper Berlin with Barrie Kosky’s Die Zauberflöte, at the Staatsoper Prag with Der fliegende Holländer, as well as the new production of Aribert Reimann’s Melusine at the Oper Frankfurt. Previously, he appeared at the Tiroler Festspiele with Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa.
In previous seasons, Karsten Januschke made debuts at the Semperoper Dresden (Zauberflöte), the New National Theatre Tokyo and the Nationaltheater Prag (Don Giovanni), the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Staatsoper Prag (Zemlinsky’s Florentinische Tragödie), and the Volksoper Wien, among others. Re-invitations took him back to the Oper Frankfurt (new productions of Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway, Handel’s Tamerlano, and Offenbach’s Banditen), the Staatsoper Stuttgart (Hänsel und Gretel and Nozze di Figaro), Bregenz (Fidelio), and the Oper im Steinbruch.
In symphonic concerts, he conducted the world premiere of a work by Farzia Fallah with the Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg, as well as the German premiere of a concerto by Katherine Balch for cellist Maximilian Hornung with the Staatsorchester Darmstadt.
In 2021, Oehms Classics released the album Love and Despair, featuring bass Andreas Bauer Kanabas and the Latvian Festival Orchestra under the direction of Karsten Januschke.
Karsten Januschke is from Schleswig-Holstein and initially studied piano and musicology in Vienna. He completed his conducting studies with Georg Mark at the Konservatorium Wien with distinction. Already during his studies, he worked at the Wiener Staatsoper as a solo répétiteur and conductor of children’s operas, as well as at the Bayreuther Festspiele. From 2008, he worked at the Oper Frankfurt as a solo répétiteur and later as Kapellmeister.