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The German conductor, Jun Märkl, is the son of distinguished German Concertmaster and a Japanese pianist mother. He studied piano and the violin as a youth. Beginning in 1978 at the Musikhochschule in Hannover he continued his piano and violin studies and also began to study conducting with Sergiu Celibidache in Munich. He later attended the University of Michigan where his mentors included Gustav Meier. He was also a pupil of Sergiu Celibidache. In 1986 he won the conducting competition of the Deutsche Musikrat and a year later won a scholarship from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to study at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa.
Soon afterwards Jun Märkl had a string of appointments in European opera houses From 1991 to 1994 he served as Music Director of the Saarländischen Staatstheaters (Saarland State Theatre) in Saarbrücken. From 1994 to 2000, he was Generalmusikdirector and director of opera at the Mannheim Nationaltheater. In the UK he made his Royal Opera House debut with Götterdämmerung in 1996, and in the USA he made his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut in February 1999 with Il trovatore, and returned in December 2000 with Turandot.
In 2005 Jun Märkl began his tenure as music director of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL). With the ONL, he has conducted several recordings for the Naxos label, including music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. In September 2007 he became principal conductor of the MDR Sinfonieorchester in Leipzig.
Jun Märkl has long been a regular guest with leading German orchestras, and in 2008 returned to the Münchner Philharmoniker and the Radio Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. Before assuming the musical directorship in Lyon, he was a regular guest with the Orchestre de Paris and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He has also conducted orchestras in Scandinavia (Helsinki Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra), the UK (English Chamber Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National), and the Netherlands (Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Dutch Radio Philharmonic). Future guesting plans include returns to many of these orchestras, and debuts with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Residentie Orkest and Zürich Tonhalle.
Every season Jun Märkl conducts the NHK Symphony Orchestra (this year being no exception), with whom in 2006 he recorded the complete Robert Schumann symphonies as part of an ongoing commitment to EXTON Records. He also appears regularly at the Pacific Music Festival and with the Mito Chamber Orchestra. Between 2001 and 2004 he conducted Japan’s first-ever complete Der Ring des Nibelungen with the NHK and Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestras.
Märkl was until 2006 Permanent Conductor of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He conducted a complete Ring Cycle at the Deutsche Oper, has also been a regular guest at the Berlin State Opera, Vienna State Opera and the Semper Oper Dresden with whom he toured to Japan in November 2007, conducting Tannhäuser.
Jun Märkl has conducted many of North America’s top orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Minnsota Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, and maintains continuing relationships with several of them - returning last season to Baltimore, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra as well as appearing with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, and with a reinvitation to Philadelphia Orchestra coming up in 2011.
Jun Märkl’s 2008-2009 Lyon season culminated in a Summer tour of Luzern, Bad Kissingen, Rheingau, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Salle Pleyel and the BBC Proms (Märkl’s London symphonic debut). In October 2009 he tours Spain with the MDR Sinfonieorchester, and touring plans with both orchestras stretch well into the future. Märkl is part-way through recording the complete symphonic works of Debussy for Naxos with ONL, to excellent reviews, and in Leipzig is recording Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann, also for Naxos. 2009-2010 marks the 5th season of his music directorship of the Orchestre National de Lyon, and his 3rd as Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the MDR Sinfonieorchester. He is scheduled to conclude his ONL tenure in 2011. |
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Jun Märkl |
Conductor |
Bach-Schoenberg: Prelude & Fugue in E flat major ("St. Anne"), BWV 552, arranged for orchestra
Bach-Schoenberg: Chorale Prelude Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 654, arranged for orchestra
Bach-Schoenberg: Chorale Prelude Komm, Gott Schöpfer, heiliger Geist, BWV 667, arranged for orchestra |
