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.
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), the Metropolitan Opera New York (2019), and the Bayreuther Festspielen (2022; the DVD of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ was released by Deutsche Grammophon).
Born in Hanover in 1980, Cornelius Meister studied piano, cello, French 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 led piano concertos by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Liszt, Gershwin, as well as Arvo Pärt’s ‘Credo’ from the keyboard.
From 2005 to 2012, Cornelius Meister was the youngest Generalmusikdirektor at the Theater und Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg. He was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien from 2010 to 2018 as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2020.
After his debut with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in 2015, he last conducted the orchestra in October 2024 and will be conducting the Orchestre during the Viola Final on November 12th.
