Markus Poschner
"As free as a jazz musician," the Neue Zürcher Zeitung headlined, and it is hard to imagine a better description of Markus Poschner's work as a conductor. For him, freedom is not the opposite of fidelity to the score but its most vivid expression.
As in jazz, where Poschner has his roots, music truly comes into being only in the moment: in listening, reacting and deciding, and in the courage to take risks. It has long been his trademark, whether in the opera pits of Bayreuth, Vienna, Hamburg, Zurich, London or Munich, on the podium with outstanding symphony orchestras, or at his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in the current 2026/27 season.
Markus Poschner is a passionate communicator, a musician that builds bridges, and in that sense a visionary. His seemingly boundless curiosity drives him to immerse himself in the scores, uncovering new layers, questioning traditions and, above all, making music with body and soul and without compromise, directly and wholly in service of the moment. For him, a score is not a fixed result but a space of possibilities that opens up anew with every performance.
All of his recordings have been honored with prestigious awards. In 2018, he received his first International Classical Music Award (ICMA) for his Brahms symphony cycle (Sony) with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana (Principal Conductor 2015–2025). In 2024, the ICMA jury honored him with its Special Achievement Award for his complete recording of all the Bruckner symphonies (Capriccio/Naxos) with the Bruckner Orchester Linz (Principal Conductor 2017–2027) and the Vienna RSO.
In 2025, he won the award once more with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana for his recording of Paul Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler" Symphony, Alfred Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra, and "The Four Temperaments" (ECM). With the Orchestre National de France, he received the German Record Critics' Award Annual Prize 2021 for his production of Offenbach's late opera "Maître Péronilla."
With the Sinfonieorchester Basel, where he has been Chief Conductor since 2025, Poschner is currently recording a complete cycle of Gustav Mahler's symphonies. The recently released recordings have been enthusiastically received by the specialist press. In Vienna, where he became Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra this season, Poschner focuses instead on contemporary music and classical modernism. Making their relevance to our everyday lives visible and accessible is a particular concern of his. To that end, several new concert formats mark the start of his tenure, including "Poschner's Milestones" in cooperation with the Vienna Musikverein, innovative concert introductions with orchestra for the Wiener Konzerthaus, and the "RSO@work" format together with the RadioKulturhaus.
Since winning the "Deutscher Dirigentenpreis" (German Conducting Prize), Markus Poschner has been a regular guest with leading orchestras around the world, including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Staatskapelle Berlin, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Bamberger Symphoniker, SWR Symphonieorchester, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, NHK Tokyo and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, as well as at the opera houses of Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Dresden, Zurich and London.
He first conducted the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra during its remarkable 2019 guest performance in Abu Dhabi, with Wagner's "Walküre." In 2022, he opened the Bayreuth Festival with "Tristan und Isolde" and returned to Bayreuth for the same production in the summer of 2023. His especially close collaboration with the Bruckner Orchester Linz culminated in 2020 in the titles "Orchestra of the Year" and "Conductor of the Year" in Austria.
After studying in Munich and serving as assistant to Sir Roger Norrington and Sir Colin Davis, Markus Poschner worked first as First Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper Berlin and then as General Music Director (GMD) of the Bremer Philharmoniker (2007–2017). From autumn 2027, he will also take up the post of Principal Conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra in the USA, one of the country's venerable orchestras.
