Storytelling Concert #3 – ‘Anna Karenina’

Oscar Jockel was assistant conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker for Kirill Petrenko for two years from 2022-24 and a conducting scholarship holder of the Karajan Academy after winning the “Siemens Conductors Scholarship” in the conducting competition at the Philharmonie Berlin in October 2021. In addition to assisting the chief conductor in concert and opera, his duties also included conducting his own concert projects together with the academy members of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Also in 2021, Oscar Jockel won a position as assistant conductor at the Philharmonie de Paris for two years with the Ensemble intercontemporain and its director Matthias Pintscher.

Oscar Jockel received the Herbert von Karajan Prize for his work as a composer and conductor to date, which was presented to him at the 2023 Salzburg Easter Festival. Previous winners include the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden (2022), Hilary Hahn (2021), Janine Jansen (2020), Mariss Jansons (2019), Sol Gabetta (2018) and Daniil Trifonov (2017).

In the 2024/25 season, he accepted invitations from the Semperoper Dresden with the Sächsische Staatskapelle, the Munich Philharmonic at the Isarphilharmonie, the Berlin Philharmonic with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Konzerthaus with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Halle Handel Festival with the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s New Bach Collegium Musicum, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and the Ljubljana Radio Orchestra. He also tours with the Camerata Salzburg and pianist Mao Fujita to Salzburg, Munich and Vienna and returns to the Gewandhaus with the Mendelssohn Orchestra Academy, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne and the Tonkünstler Orchestra Vienna.

In recent seasons, he has already made guest appearances at the Salzburg Easter Festival 2023 in a production at the Felsenreitschule and the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, at the International Shostakovich Festival in Gohrisch with the Staatskapelle Dresden, at the International Bruckner Festival 2022 in Linz, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Munich Radio Orchestra and the Ensemble intercontemporain in Paris.

As a conductor and assistant conductor to Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Reinhard Goebel and Hartmut Haenchen, among others, he has already worked with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Klangforum Wien, the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.

At the Järvi Conducting Academy 2018 in Estonia, he was taught by Paavo Järvi and his father, Neeme Järvi, and in 2019 he received a Conducting Seminar Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons and Stefan Asbury. After winning an Aspen Conducting Prize as a Conducting Fellow of the American Conducting Academy at the Aspen Music Festival in summer 2021, he received a re-invitation for 2022.

In 2021, Oscar Jockel was accepted as a scholarship holder of the German Music Council for the Forum Dirigieren.

The actress and publisher Meike Rötzer, born in Bünde in 1971, completed her acting training at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich. She made her debut at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe in 1996 and performed at the Städtische Bühnen Kiel from 2000.
Further freelance productions followed, including at the Berlin theatre Berliner Sophiensæle. Her debut in front of the camera began directly on the big screen in cinema films such as ‘Einer meiner ältesten Freunde’ (1994) and ‘Ab nach Tibet! Meike Rötzer has been recording for radio plays and audio books since 2007, such as ‘Wir müssen die Liebe neu erfinden’ (2023) by Mona Chollet or ‘Eva’ (2023) by Verena Keßler.
For her work on Katja Petrowskaja’s ‘Vielleicht Esther’, she was nominated for the German Audiobook Award for Best Interpreter in 2023. In the podcast ‘NATURerKUNDEN’, which she produced, she has been discussing the topics of nature and animals with changing dialogue partners since 2021.
From 2008 to 2022, she worked as an editor for fiction at the publishing house Matthes & Seitz Berlin.
Rötzer founded Erzählbuchverlag in 2022, through which she publishes audiobooks. The dramas and novels of world literature are condensed and told in contemporary language. She performs with the narrative solos at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Literaturhaus Frankfurt, among others, and radioeins has been broadcasting the narrative lounge “Richtig gutes Zeug!”, which she co-founded, since 2022.

Photo © Nik Konietzny