The 2018/19 season saw Alexander Liebreich begin his tenure as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. He held the position of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR) since 2012 until the end of the 2018-2019 season. In May 2021 he was appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Designate of Orquesta de Valencia, starting in the 2021/2022 season.
In 2014 he inaugurated the new “NOSPR” concert hall in Katowice, the orchestra’s home, with a performance including Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 with Krystian Zimerman. The collaboration with NOSPR and the label Accentus Music features recordings of pieces by Lutosławski alongside other great Polish works. Their third CD release won “Best Collection” at the International Classical Music Awards 2017.
In 2018 he took over as Artistic Director of the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, opening the first edition in June 2018 with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Next to that he was elected head of the Richard-Strauss-Society and will continue in this position until 2023.
He was Artistic Director of the festival “Katowice Kultura Natura” from 2015 – 2018. Some of Europe’s finest orchestras, ensembles and soloists were invited to the Festival during this time, including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. He was Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra from 2006 – 2016. Their ECM Classics release of Tigran Mansurian’s “Requi em“, with RIAS Kammerchor, received a nomination for a Grammy Award in 2018 and won the ICMA Award 2018 in the category “Contemporary Music”.
As one of Germany’s foremost conductors, Alexander Liebreich’s extensive career takes him around the world. As a guest conductor he has worked with many prestigious orchestras including the Concertgebouw Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Dresden Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich.
Alongside his concerts and opera performances, Liebreich has established a reputation for producing innovative projects. In 2011 he became the first European Artistic Director of the Tongyeong International Music Festival in South Korea. With the goal of encouraging intercultural encounters, he implemented the “east-west-residence-programme”, inviting guest artists like Heiner Goebbels, Unsuk Chin and Martin Grubinger to South Korea. In October 2016 Liebreich won the Bavarian Culture Prize Special Award from the Bavarian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Art.
Alexander Liebreich, was born in Regensburg and studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and the Salzburg Mozarteum gaining much of his early artistic experience with Michael Gielen and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He was influenced by his mentor Claudio Abbado, who invited him to join and assist productions at Salzburger Osterfestspiele with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and in Bolzano with the Gustav-Mahler-Jugend Orchestra.
