Generalmusikdirektor Staatsoper AND Staatsorchester Stuttgart 

Cornelius Meister has been Music Director at the Staatsoper und Staatsorchester Stuttgart since 2018. Among the awards he has received in recent years are the Gramophone Award 2022 in the "Contemporary" category, the OPUS Klassik as "Conductor of the Year", the International Classical Music Award in the "Symphonic Recording" category for the complete recording of Bohuslav Martinů's symphonies as well as the Diapason d'Or and the German Record Critics' Award for the DVD "Jules Massenet: Werther" (Zurich Opera House). Under his direction, the Staatsorchester Stuttgart was also awarded the Innovation Prize of the German Orchestra Foundation in 2020. 

His recent debuts in the 2023/24 season at Les Arts in Valencia and with the Wiener Symphoniker led to immediate re-invitations. In the 2024/25 season Cornelius Meister returns to the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre National de France, Orquesta Nacional de España, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, and to the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. He will conduct the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in the Berliner as well as the Kölner Philharmonie, and he will give his debut with the hr-Sinfonieorchester conducting Pierre Boulez’ ‘notations’ and Beethovens ‘Eroica’. With the Staatsorchester Stuttgart he performs, among others, Bruckner’s and Mahler’s eighth symphonies as well as all of Mendelssohn’s symphonies.

His opera productions in Stuttgart in the 2024/25 season include ‘Freischütz’, ‘Idomeneo’, ‘Parsifal’ and more. With ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ he continues to collaborate with the Wiener Staatsoper, with whom he has been working since 2012.

Known for his wide repertoire, Cornelius Meister has performed works by more than 250 composers, including all the symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibelius and Martinů, as well as all the tone poems by Richard Strauss and many world premieres. He has appeared with the Concertgebouworkest, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra New York, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, several BBC orchestras, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Korean KBS Symphony Orchestra, and the NDR, WDR, SWR and BR radio orchestras (Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester), as well as Zurich’s La Scintilla.

Cornelius Meister made his debut at the Hamburgische Staatsoper at the age of 21, followed by engagements at the Bayerische Staatsoper München, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Opernhaus Zürich, New National Theatre (Tokyo), Opéra National de Paris, San Francisco Opera, The Royal Danish Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Since then, he has given debuts at the Teatro alla Scala Milan (2015), at the Metropolitan Opera New York (2019), and at the Bayreuther Festspielen (2022; the DVD of ‘The Ring of the Nibelung’ was released by Deutsche Grammophon).

Born in Hanover in 1980, Cornelius Meister studied piano, cello, horn, conducting and philosophy in Hanover with Konrad Meister, Martin Brauß and Eiji Ōue, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Dennis Russell Davies, Jorge Rotter and Karl Kamper on a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. He has appeared as a pianist in Europe and the United States and has led piano concertos by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Liszt and Gershwin, as well as Arvo Pärt’s ‘Credo’ from the keyboard.

From 2005 to 2012, Cornelius Meister was the youngest Music Director in the world at the Theater und Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg. He was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien from 2010 to 2018 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2020.

SEASON 2024/25