Magdalena Klein is an emerging German conductor who has established herself with a broad repertoire ranging from the Classical and Romantic periods to contemporary music. She combines symphonic and choral-symphonic experience with a highly communicative artistic approach. Alongside her role as Music Director of the Sinfonieorchester Hannover, she works with numerous orchestras and choirs in Germany and abroad. A particular focus of her work lies in diverse concert formats and music education, especially family and youth concerts, narrated and moderated programmes, and educational projects.
In the 2026/27 season, Magdalena Klein will appear at Theater für Niedersachsen in works by Outi Tarkiainen, Joseph Haydn and Jean Sibelius. She will also conduct educational concerts for children and young audiences with the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen.
Recent engagements have taken her to orchestras including the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal, Hofer Symphoniker, Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, Göttinger Symphonieorchester and Philharmonisches Kammerorchester Wernigerode. In 2022, she made international debuts with orchestras in Egypt and Mexico. More recent debuts include the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn and the Jenaer Philharmonie. Repeat invitations, including from the Göttinger Symphonieorchester and Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, reflect her growing reputation.
From 2019 to 2023, Magdalena Klein was Assistant Conductor of the Bochumer Symphoniker. During this time, she worked alongside General Music Directors Steven Sloane and Tung-Chieh Chuang and collaborated with conductors including John Storgårds, Anja Bihlmaier, Kazuki Yamada, Olari Elts, Giedrė Šlekytė and Hans Graf, among other distinguished artists. She received important artistic impulses through masterclasses with Riccardo Muti, Paavo and Kristjan Järvi, Thomas Hengelbrock and Sir Roger Norrington. In 2023, Riccardo Muti selected her to participate in his Conducting Academy at the Spring Festival in Tokyo, where she conducted Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. That same year, she also took part in Thomas Hengelbrock’s Conductor’s Academy in Fontainebleau. In 2021, she participated in the renowned Järvi Academy in Estonia.
A particular focus of her work is the choral-symphonic repertoire. From 2019 to 2023, she served as Music Director of the Philharmonischer Chor Bochum. Her performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem was praised by the press as “an Wohlklang kaum zu überbieten”. She has further worked with renowned ensembles including the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and Chorwerk Ruhr, as well as at the San Francisco Opera.
Her artistic development is grounded in a comprehensive musical education. She holds two Master’s degrees, in orchestral conducting and choral conducting. Her studies took her to Hannover, Florence, Berlin and San Francisco, among other places. At the Universität der Künste Berlin, she studied orchestral conducting at the International Conducting Academy with Prof. Steven Sloane and Prof. Harry Curtis. During this time, she founded the ensemble orchestr.insîéme, with which she presented numerous concerts between 2016 and 2019.
She was the first conductor to be selected for the re:balance mentoring programme of the Rudolf Augstein Foundation, which promotes equality in the arts. In 2019, she was also a finalist in the conducting competition for German conservatoires in Nuremberg.