Golo Berg

Born in Weimar, Golo Berg obtained his musical formation in his birth town with the renowned conductor-pedagogue Prof. Gunter Kahlert. Selected master classes allowed him to work with Lorin Maazel, Luciano Berio, Michael Gielen, Lothar Zagrosek, Gerd Albrecht, Rudolf Barschai, Dmitri Kitajenko and others. Already in 1990 he was finalist at the International Conducting Competition “Arturo Toscanini” in Parma. His first engagements led him to the Landestheater Mecklenburg-Neustrelitz, where he was appointed Chief Conductor - one of the youngest worldwide at this time. Later on he became musical director of the Städtebundtheater Hof and Chief Conductor of the Hofer Symphoniker. From 2001 till 2009 Golo Berg was Musical Director of the Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau.

With the Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau he caused a sensation throughout Germany especially with the interpretation of a series of contemporary works, i.a. Heiner Goebbels’ “Surrogate cities”, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s “Roi Ubu” and Luciano Berio’s “Sinfonia”. This is one of his multifaceted working focus that reflects his work with the Anhaltische Philharmonie Dessau. With this orchestra Golo Berg has realized numerous radio broadcasts for MDR and Deutschlandfunk as well as CD recordings for cpo that have all been been rated with best marks by the specialised press. In 2008 ARTHAUS published a DVD with Golo Berg conducting Richard Wagner's “Tristan and Isolde” (direction Johannes Felsenstein).

As an opera conductor, Golo Berg belongs to the most profiled German artists of his generation and possesses great experience in the concert and in the opera field. His repertoire currently comprehends over 80 opera works. Guest performances have led him to numerous outstanding opera houses, i.a. at the Opera Houses of Leipzig, Cologne, Mannheim and St. Gallen. His interpretations of Wagner’s “Parsifal”, “Tristan and Isolde”, “The flying Dutchman”, Strauss’ “Salomé” and “Electra”, Verdi’s early Schiller operas “Giovanna d’ Arco”, “I Masnadieri” and “Luisa Miller” as well as Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunow” have attracted a great deal of press' and audience's attention. Due to his long-lasting focus on the stage works of Kurt Weill he is considered a specialist for this composer.

In several concerts Golo Berg conducted different German orchestras: the MDR-Sinfonieorchester, the NDR Radio-Philharmonie Hannover, the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Hamburger Symphoniker to name but a few examples. Lately he has been working intensively with Asian orchestras like the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra.

On behalf of the Deutscher Musikrat, for which he also works as a juror, Golo Berg regularly directs master classes for conductors. Since 2004 he belongs as a founding member to the executive board of the Arts Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt.

Upon completion of his activities in Dessau he has been in charge of different international projects - just to mention several concerts with the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos in Lisbon (Carl Orff's “Carmina Burana”), conducting engagements at the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra (Beethoven's Symphony N°9) and a commission of the Goethe Institut Beijing, a concert in Wuhan with Tan Dun's monumental oeuvre “Heaven-Earth-Mankind”.

2010/2011 Please use no older version of this biography. Any modification has to be approved by a r t e s y s t e m.