Chamber concert at Theater im Delphi

Jörg Widmann is considered one of the most versatile and intriguing artists of his generation.

From 2026, he will be the new Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy, which has been a cornerstone of contemporary music within the festival since its founding by Pierre Boulez in 2004. During the 2025/26 season, he will be performing worldwide in all his roles as a clarinettist, conductor and composer, including his third season as Principal Guest Conductor of the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also Associate Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Partner of Sinfonietta Riga.

Following notable appearances with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, a key focus of the 2025/26 season will take him to the USA: for the first time, he will conduct the Cleveland Orchestra in performances of his own music and that of Mendelssohn. He will also take the podium with the Atlanta and Detroit symphony orchestras. Further guest conducting engagements will take him to the Oslo Philharmonic, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. In his capacity as Associate Conductor, he will be touring South America with the Munich Chamber Orchestra.

A highlight in February 2026 will be Olga Neuwirth’s clarinet concerto *Zones of Blue*, dedicated to Jörg Widmann, which he will premiere with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle. Another highlight will be the world premiere of Jörg Widmann’s new composition *Jupiter-Etüde* as part of the Mozart Festival in Würzburg in June 2026.

Long-standing chamber music partners such as Isabelle Faust, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Carolin Widmann, the Hagen Quartet, the Signum Quartet and the Amabile Quartet will perform alongside Jörg Widmann at venues including the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Philharmonie in Essen, the Muziekgebouw, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Auditorio Nacional de Música, Toppan Hall and the Boulez Saal.

At the 2015 Donaueschingen Music Festival, Widmann premiered Mark Andre’s Clarinet Concerto. Other clarinet concertos dedicated to him or written for him include Wolfgang Rihm’s Music for Clarinet and Orchestra (1999) and Aribert Reimann’s Cantus (2006).

Conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Harding, Kent Nagano, Franz Welser-Möst, Christian Thielemann, Iván Fischer, Andris Nelsons and Sir Simon Rattle regularly perform his music. Orchestras such as the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra and many others have premiered his music and regularly include it in their concert repertoire. In the 2023/24 season, Jörg Widmann was Composer in Residence with the Berlin Philharmonic. The residency culminated in the world premiere of his Horn Concerto, featuring Stefan Dohr as soloist and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Studied under Gerd Starke in Munich and Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School in New York, Jörg Widmann was himself a professor of clarinet and composition at the Freiburg University of Music. Since 2017, Widmann has held a chair in composition at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. In recognition of his services to music, he was appointed a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in June 2024. He was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, the Free Academy of Arts in Hamburg (2007) and the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz (2016); in February 2023, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Limerick, Ireland. In July 2025, Jörg Widmann was elected President of the International Max Reger Society.

Jörg Widmann studied composition with Kay Westermann, Wilfried Hiller, Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rihm. His work has received numerous awards, most recently the prestigious Bach Prize from the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, as well as the Music Prize of the City of Munich.

At the music conservatories around the world, students learn to master their instrument or voice technically and artistically, and to interpret music skillfully. However, what can only be taught to a limited extent is how to play or sing and the general interaction within a large ensemble, which for many graduates becomes part of their professional life later on. To bridge this gap, an increasing number of orchestras and choirs are offering specialized training programs. At the RSB, the Orchestra Academy for String Players was founded in 2002 at the initiative of the orchestra’s friends and supporters.

Students from all over the world apply for the thirteen scholarships, which are awarded for two years to promising talents under 26 years of age. In the 2018/2019 season, musicians from ten different nations were represented in the academy, highlighting the diverse nature of the orchestra.

The members of the academy are assigned to orchestral duties just like the full-time colleagues, playing in rehearsals and concerts, as well as recording CDs and going on tour. In their section, they each have a dedicated contact person. These mentors provide guidance, constructive criticism, lessons, and share their own experiences. In this way, the academy members are strengthened as artists and learn a great deal about working within an artistic collective. Regular workshops are held where topics outside the musical repertoire are addressed. For example, they receive training in audition preparation, concert program dramaturgy, music education for children and adults, or musician health. Once a year, the members of the Orchestra Academy perform a chamber concert.

For many academy members, their time at the RSB serves as a real career springboard, enabling them to secure positions in renowned national and international ensembles—sometimes even during their time in the academy—and to begin their professional lives with more confidence, often continuing within the RSB itself.