Frank Strobel conducts music by Ennio Morricone

A conductor whose international reputation is built on repertoire of unusual stylistic diversity.
Frank Strobel has long been recognised as a leading figure in the space where film meet music. In particular, he has played a crucial role in bringing film concerts into leading opera houses and concert halls.
As a guest conductor Frank Strobel conducts both film concerts and symphonic repertoire with orchestras such as the Filarmonica della Scala, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, HR-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, London Symphony Orchestra, NDR
Radiophilharmonie, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National Capitole Toulouse ,Orchestre National de Radio France, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchestre National de Belgique, Philharmonia Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Seattle Symphony, Staatskapelle Dresden, Sydney Symphony, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. He is curating film symphonic concert series at the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Tonhalle Zürich. Frank Strobel held recently the position as Chief Conductor of the WDR Funkhausorchester.
The 2025/26 season includes a tribute to Ennio Morricone, featuring both symphonic and symphonic film with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin at the Philharmonie Berlin. At the Philharmonie in Paris Frank Strobel conducts the Orchestre de Paris with the French premiere of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and music by Wojciech Kilar. In Los Angeles at the iconic United Theater on Broadway, he will perform Phantom of the Opera with the score by Roy Budd and the LA Opera Orchestra. Celebrating the centennial of Richard Strauß‘ score for Der Rosenkavalier, Frank Strobel appears at the Liederhalle Stuttgart. The cycle Die Nibelungen takes him to the Konzerthaus Vienna, conducting the ORF Radio-Sinfonieorchester. At the Philharmonie in Luxemburg and in Monaco, he appears with Hitchcocks’ Blackmail in collaboration with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo respectively. With the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich Frank Strobel performs Blancanieves at the Tonhalle Zurich and with the HR-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt Frank Strobel will appear in a symphonoic programme at the Alte Oper Frankfurt.
Frank Strobel has been particularly at home in the French music scene for some time. In July 2024, the premiere of Abel Gance’s Napoléon epic took place in its’ entirety at the Seine Musicale in Paris, lasting a total of seven hours in two parts, directed by Strobel. The Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Choeur de Radio France performed this exceptional symphonic film concert with a revised compilation by Simon Cloquet-Lafollye, incorporating a vast collection of classical scores from Mozart to Wagner. In 2023 he premiered also in Paris together with the Orchestre National de France the new score by David Hudry for Berlin. Symphony of a big city. Later on the premiere of the film concert with the feature film Kaamelott: Premier Volet by producer, actor and composer Alexandre Astier took place with the Orchestre National de Lyon. Another premiere was the film music concert Chaplin in Concert. With a smile under his direction at the Philharmonie de Paris with the Orchestre de Paris. Frank Strobel is also a repeated guest at the Festival Lumière. Grand Lyon Film Festival. In February 2021, he conducted at the Victoires de la Musique. Another important French film concert project came to fruition at the Musikfest Berlin and at the Festival Lumière in Lyon in 2019: Abel Gance’s seven-hour silent epic La Roue, with a score specially assembled from 117 works written by French composers between 1880 and 1920. Having reconstructed Sergei Prokofiev’s music for Eisenstein’s films Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Strobel conducted the first performances of his realisations at the Musikfest Berlin.  In 2008 an original copy of Metropolis was discovered in Buenos Aires; two years later a fully restored version of the film was premiered at the Berlinale, with Frank Strobel conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. In 2006 at Dresden’s Semperoper he conducted the Staatskapelle Dresden to accompany a reconstruction of the film of Der Rosenkavalier with Richard Strauss’s original music.
Beyond the world of film music, Frank Strobel has achieved international recognition for his first performances and revivals of works by Alfred Schnittke, Franz Schreker, Alexander von Zemlinsky und Siegfried Wagner. The great Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998)
found Frank Strobel congenial, considering him an ideal interpreter of his works. Strobel now retains the adaptation rights for Schnittke’s music. In 2000 Frank Strobel co-founded the Europäische FilmPhilharmonie, an institution dedicated to
the artistic development of music and film in the concert hall. Of special significance in this context was Strobel’s role as an adviser to the TV station ZDF/ARTE on its’ programming of silent films and this has resulted in notable performances of silent films to the accompaniment of legendary musical works.
Within his vast discography the CD series of first recordings with film suites by Alfred Schnittke, arranged by Frank Strobel and realised with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin were received to great critical acclaim. The fifth release of this series received an Opus Klassik Award in 2022.

With around 60 concerts annually, CD recordings, and international performances, the Rundfunkchor Berlin is one of the world’s leading choirs. Three Grammy Awards alone stand as a testament to the quality of its recordings. Its wide-ranging repertoire, flexible, richly nuanced sound, flawless precision, and compelling presence make the professional choir a partner of choice for prominent orchestras and conductors, including Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In Berlin, the choir has an intense collaboration with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, as well as with their chief conductors.

The Rundfunkchor Berlin also attracts international attention with its interdisciplinary projects, which break the traditional concert format and offer new ways of experiencing choral music. A milestone was the staged interpretation of Brahms’ Requiem as a “human requiem” by Jochen Sandig and a team from Sasha Waltz & Guests. After performances in New York, Hong Kong, Paris, and Adelaide, the production traveled to Istanbul for the first time in the summer of 2019. For the project LUTHER dancing with the gods, the choir reflected on Luther’s impact on the arts and within the arts in a genre-defying concert performance with Robert Wilson and music by Bach, Nystedt, and Reich. For TIME TRAVELLERS, the choir will transform the Berliner Radialsystem into a walkable time tunnel in the 2019/2020 season. Based on Jonathan Dove’s composition The Passing of the Year, the project will create an interactive choral experience with films, images, performance, and music.

Through its community projects targeting diverse audiences – such as the large sing-along concert at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Festival of Choral Cultures for choirs from around the world, and the Song Market for Berlin students – the Rundfunkchor Berlin aims to inspire as many people as possible to sing. Its comprehensive educational program SING! focuses on the sustainable networking of various partners to promote singing as a natural part of Berlin’s elementary school curriculum. With the Academy and Schola, as well as the International Master Class Berlin, the ensemble is committed to nurturing the next generation of professional singers and conductors.

Founded in 1925, the Rundfunkchor Berlin celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2015. The choir has been shaped by conductors such as Helmut Koch, Dietrich Knothe (1982–93), Robin Gritton (1994–2001), and Simon Halsey (2001–2015). Since the 2015/16 season, Dutch conductor Gijs Leenaars has been the chief conductor and artistic director of the ensemble. Simon Halsey remains connected to the choir as an honorary conductor and guest conductor. The Rundfunkchor Berlin is an ensemble of the Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin, under the sponsorship of Deutschlandradio, the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Berlin, and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.