Joseph Bastian
Joseph Bastian celebrated a “sensational debut” (Abendzeitung, Munich) in 2016 when he stepped in for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the middle of a concert week. His conducting delighted critics and orchestra alike and marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration.
His most recent projects with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra include conducting at the finals of the 2018 ARD Munich International Music Competition and a concert of contemporary programming by Boulez and Reich, during which he was awarded the Eugen Jochum Prize.
In 2016, Joseph Bastian won the Neeme Järvi Prize of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and was invited to conduct the Gstaad Festival Orchestra on tour with pianists Khatia and Gvantsa Buniatishvili.
Highlights of the 2019/2020 season and beyond include debuts with the Dresden Philharmonic, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre de Chambre du Luxembourg, Orchestre Dijon-Bourgogne, Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya and Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. This continues his success story from the 2018/2019 season, when he toured with the Asian Youth Or-chestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and made debuts in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. In Europe, he has appeared as guest conductor with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the hr Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie.
In the field of opera, he conducted “Figaro’s Wedding” at the Bourgas State Opera, collaborated with the Munich Chamber Opera and conducted Christian Jost’s chamber opera “Death knocks” with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the current season he is conducting a new production of Zurich Opera of “Il mondo della luna” with the International Opera Studio.
A close collaboration as assistant connects him with Mariss Jansons, Daniel Harding and Vladimir Ju-rowski. From 2011 to 2018 he was musical director of the Abaco Orchestra of the University of Munich, with which he conducted his debut in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein in October 2017.
Joseph Bastian played cello and trombone, was bass trombonist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
He was also very active in the field of historical performance practice, playing baroque trombone with the ensemble “Les Cornets noirs” (Basel) and specializing in two almost forgotten instruments, the ophicleide and the serpent, which he played with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, among others.