Table for the 1 triples with object "Jan Latham-Koenig, born in England in 1953 of French, Danish and Polish descent, studied at the Royal College of Music. After winning all the major conducting and piano prizes and a Gulbenkian Fellowship, he first made his mark as a concert pianist, but in 1981 decided to concentrate exclusively on conducting. He has conducted most of the major orchestras in Britain including the Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Halle and all the BBC orchestras. With his own group, the Koenig Ensemble, which he founded in 1976, he has conducted many ambitious and highly-successful projects. From 1989 to 1992 he was Music Director of the Orquestra do Porto, which he formed at the instigation of the Portuguese government.
Music Director of both the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Opera du Rhin since the 1997-98 season, his work there has been very favourably received. Recent productions have included Turandot and Elektra, and the ballet Prince of the Pagodas. His production of Dialogues des Carmelites won the Claude-Rostand prize for Best Regional Opera production (1999) and also the Diapason d'or for the best opera video (2001). His other Strasbourg productions have included Macbeth, La Bohme, Peter Grimes, Tristan, Pelleas et Melisande, Korngold's Die Tote Stadt and Carmen. In May 1999, he brought the orchestra to the Barbican, London, for a Gala concert in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Council of Europe, returning in 2002 for a highly-acclaimed performance of Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust. Also in London, Latham-Koenig has conducted the Opera du Rhin in his much-praised Dialogues des Carmelites at the BBC Proms. Other opera performances abroad have included Henze's Venus & Adonis (Genoa), Tosca (Bastille), Dialogues, Jenufa and Hamlet (Royal Danish Opera) and I Lombardi (Santiago, Chile). He regularly performs with this orchestra at Chatelet, Baden-Baden and in other venues in France. Other recent tours include Wroclaw, to perform Szymanowski's King Roger, and Greece.
Jan Latham-Koenig's guest conducting takes him to many countries. He has appeared with orchestras worldwide: in America, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and St Paul Chamber Orchestra; in Japan, with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and Tokyo Symphony; in France with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Orchestra National Bordeaux Aquitaine; in Europe with orchestras including the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Danish and Swedish Radio orchestras, Stockholm Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the orchestras of Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk and Sudwestfunk in Germany. He enjoys performing in Italy, and has performed with the orchestras of the Teatro Comunale in Florence and RAI Turin. In 2001, he gave several concerts with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and last season made a most successful concert debut with Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Opera is a particular interest. From 1988 to 1990 he held the position of Principal Guest Conductor at the opera house in Rome. In 1988 he made an impressive debut at the Vienna State Opera (Macbeth) and was immediately re-invited for performances of Aida in May 1989. As Permanent Guest Conductor he conducted well over 100 performances there, including major revivals of Maria Stuarda and Macbeth, and, in 2001, Un Ballo in Maschera, La Traviata and I Puritani. His many European performances have taken him to the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden) and English National Opera; to the Bayerische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper, Berlin, and Hamburg State Opera; to Verona Opera and La Fenice (Venice), and to Royal Danish Opera, Royal Swedish Opera and the opera houses in Genoa, Lisbon, Toulouse, Monte-Carlo, Bonn, Stuttgart and Bilbao. He has also visited the opera house in Santiago (Chile) and Canadian Opera. Opera festivals include Bregenz, Caracalla (Rome), Wexford, Macerata, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Torre del Lago, Vicenza, Bergamo, Lucca, Montepulciano and Montpellier. Opera broadcasts include Puccini's Edgar and Szymanowski's King Roger for Danish Radio; a cycle of Weill operas and radio cantatas for WDR and, in early 1999, Dialogues des Carmelites, broadcast nationwide by French television from the Opera du Rhin.
In 2001, Latham-Koenig and embarked on a notable new series of recordings, with Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, for Avie. Most recently he garnering international acclaim, including a Gramophone Editor's Choice and a Choc du Monde from Le Monde de la Musique, for the first CD release of Ibert's early two-act opera Persee et Andromde. Their first release for Avie was Franck's Symphony in D coupled with extracts from Psyche. For Capriccio he has recorded a Weill cycle including Mahagonny with Anja Silja, Der Zar lsst sich photographieren, Der Lindberghflug, Magna Carta, Der Silbersee, Happy End, Der Kuhhandel and Street Scene. His discography also includes Donizetti's Poliuto with Martinucci, Connell and Bruson (Nuova Era), Catalani's Dejanice, Henze's La cubana, Leoncavallo's La Boheme (Nuova Era) and Donizetti's Elisabetta al castello di Kenilworth (Ricordi). His three William Walton releases form part of the Chandos Walton cycle including the Violin Concerto (Lydia Mordkovitch), Viola Concerto (Nobuko Imai) and Facade Suites Nos. 1-3 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Recent seasons also included a very successful and ambitious concert presentation of La Boheme in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, consisting of Act I of Puccini's opera and Acts III and IV of Leoncavallo's; appearances with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique and guest conducting in Europe and the Far East. Recent repertoire has included Mahler's massive Eighth Symphony, Britten's War Requiem and Janacek's Glagolithic Mass. Future plans include further engagements in Japan, return visits to a range of European orchestras and, in addition to his regular Strasbourg appearances, residencies, tours and recordings with Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg."^^xsd:string on predicate ns2:olb sorted by label
