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The German conductor and cellist, Philipp von Steinaecker, grew up in Hamburg, was originally trained as a cellist and was a member of both the German National Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. He studied in Vienna, with the late Harvey Shapiro at the Juilliard School in New York and with Christophe Coin at the CNSM in Paris. He studied conducting with Mark Stringer at the Vienna Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst.
Philipp von Steinaecker was a founding member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and a member of Claudio Abbado’s Lucerne Festival Orchestra. He has played principal cello with the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique. As a student he played regularly with the Wiener Philharmoniker and in the Wiener Staatsoper.
Philipp von Steinaecker was the first recipient of the Melgaard Young Conductor position with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. After a year with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, he assisted Sir John Eliot Gardiner on two opera productions at the Opéra Comique. He worked extensively with Claudio Abbado as a member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and became his assistant and with John Eliot Gardiner in the Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique. Both conductors are an important inspiration to him and have had a strong influence on his musical development.
His musical interests are extremely broad and multi-facetted. He feels equally at home in the German romantic repertoire as in the music of the Second Viennese School. He is passionate about Baroque and classical music and has a profound stylistic understanding for both.
In November 2010, Philipp von Steinaecker stepped in at the last minute to conduct the season opening of the Orchestra della Toscana in Florence and has since led the Camerata Salzburg, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano and Orchestra del Friuli-Venezia-Giulia. He has recently stepped in for Claudio Abbado to conduct the Orchestra Mozart in two concerts in Bologna. He has also conducted the orchestra concerts of the Gustav Mahler Academy in Bolzano since 2010. In 2011-2012 season he conducted the Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Sinfonica Siciliana di Palermo, Filarmonica di Torino, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra and, as part of the Schönberg Experience, the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. In 2012-2013 season he appeared for the first time with the New Japan Philharmonic in Tokyo and was immediately re-invited to conduct the orchestra in several concerts of L.v. Beethoven’s 9th symphony in 2013. To many of the above mentined orchestras he will return to conduct in 2013-2014 season. He is assistant to Sir John Eliot Gardiner and has also been assisting Daniel Harding, Sir Simon Rattle and Vladimir Jurowski on various occasions.
Philipp von Steinaecker founded and conducts the Bolzano-based, international, period instrument orchestra Musica Saeculorum, which members come from all over Europe. Many of Musica Saeculorum’s concerts have been recorded for the Austrian radio station Ö1 and have later appeared as CD’s on the ORF label Alte Musik. Amongst them is George Frideric Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Creation, a CD with Bach Cantatas, and a program with arrangements for Salon Orchestra. In the 2012-2013 season Musica Saeculorum played at the Barocktage Stift Melk in Austria. He made debut with Musica Saeculorum at the Kölner Philharmonie with Bruckner’s Symphony No.1 on period instruments in March 2013 and in 2014 he will conduct a production of Mozart’s Mitridate at the Cité de la Musique in Paris.
Together with his wife, the flutist Chiara Tonelli, Philipp von Steinaecker is founder and artistic director of the Chamber Music Festival at Castel Presule near Bolzano, Italy. The festival has presented such musicians as Camilla Tilling, Christian Tetzlaff, and Christophe Coin, as well as members of the Artemis, Vogler, Kuss and Eroica Quartets. |
