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“An excellent conductor” with “extraordinary talent”*

In 2006, Ulrich Kern won the “German Music Universities Conductor competition”, which was sponsored by the Herbert-von-Karajan Foundation Berlin, and furthermore received the competition’s special prize for Best Interpretation in the field of Opera.
Since this success, he has developed an active concert schedule as part of renowned orchestras, including the German Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, the Dresden Philharmonie, the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, the Bochum Symphoniker, the Stuttgart Kammerorchester, the Brandenburg Stateorchestra Frankfurt. In the USA, Ulrich Kern has conducted the Aspen Music Festival and the Spokane Symphony Orchestra. Furthermore, he has made guest appearances with renowned orchestras in Russia, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria and South Korea.

At the moment the native of Stuttgart is engaged as First Kapellmeister and associate Music Director at the Theater Görlitz. Particularly of note are also his recently conducted opera performances with Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Staatstheater Salvador/ Brazil and Mozart’s “Idomeneo” at the Opernhaus Osnabrück. During the Ruhrtriennale 2010, he undertook the production of the premiere of the opera “Gisela!” from Hans-Werner Henze.

Radio recordings, like the recent CD production by Saarländischer Rundfunk and a concert broadcast on Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk complete his extensive artistic activities. In 2011 he was featured with the Nordwestdeutschen Philharmonie in a WDR television broadcast.

Ulrich Kern studied at the Universities of Music in Stuttgart and Weimar, and received further decisive inspiration through Bernhard Haitink, Jorma Panula as well as David Zinman in the USA. Thanks to the support of the Conductors’ Forum of the German Music Council, he has conducted at the Staatstheater in Mainz and the Kiel Oper.

Alongside traditional symphonies and operas, he is also interested in contemporary music. He conducted various premieres in the closing concert of the “International Day for New Music 2006” in Darmstadt, as well as special ensembles for new music like the Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg and the Studio music factory Cologne.

In 2001, Ulrich Kern founded the “Kammerorchester Forum Stuttgart”, with which he still plays today. He was the assistant to Howard Griffiths and Steven Sloane at the Federal Youth Orchestra and made a guest appearance with the Tübingen Jugendsinfonieorchester in Uruguay, the south of France and at the Nargen Festival in Estonia.

*See press releases