BIOGRAPHY

Music Director of the Salzburg Landestheater, Leslie Suganandarajah took up the helm in 2019-20 with a new production of Lohengrin at the Festspielhaus.  Other productions have included Macbeth, Ariadne auf Naxos and Peter Eötvös Angels in America and this season he will conduct Rosenkavalier, Iolanthe/Nutcracker and Die Fledermaus.

 As a symphonic conductor, Suganandarajah’s charismatic and inspiring leadership has impressed orchestras such as the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester, WDR Funkhaus Orchester, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie and the Brucknerorchester Linz.  He made his UK debut in November 2021 conducting Chineke!  at the South Bank Centre and was immediately re-invited to tour with them the following season.  He has a flair for classical and romantic repertoire especially Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms and Strauss.

Highlights of the 2022-23 season include re-invitations to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Salzburg Mozarteum, MDR Sinfonieorchester and Chineke! Orchestra, whilst debut performances bring him to the Ulster Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North, London Mozart Players and Wiener Concertverein.  He will tour Europe with Chineke! including performances in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Brussels, Rotterdam and Dublin as well as a return to London’s South Bank Centre.

 He studied conducting at the Musikhochschule Franz Liszt in Weimar and was accepted onto the Deutsche Dirigentenforum in 2011.  After being awarded the Hermann-Hildebrandt Scholarship for young conductors he was appointed Assistant Conductor to Michael Sanderling and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2014-15 season.  Following five years at the Theater Koblenz (1st Kapellmeister from 2015-16), he moved to Linz to take up the position of 1st Kapellmeister at the Landestheater Linz (2017-2020).  In 2018 he made his debut at the Landestheater Salzburg conducting Prokofiev Cinderella after which he was appointed Music Director from the 2019-20 season.

 Suganandarajah is an experienced opera conductor and his productions include Carmen, Figaro, Elektra, The Rake’s Progress, Rape of Lucretia, Rigoletto, Otello, Il Trovatore, Othmar Schoeck Penthesilea, Fidelio, Tosca, Lohengrin and Parsifal.

 Born in Colombuthurai, Sri Lanka in 1983, his family fled the civil war and moved to Germany when he was two years old where he began music lessons.  He developed a passion for piano, flute and organ and studied at the Musikhochschule in Hannover and Lübeck. 

2022/23

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