About
Teodor Currentzis is the Artistic Director of the Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre, Artistic Director of the ensemble musicAeterna and of the musicAeterna Chamber Choir, both formed in 2004, during his tenure as Music Director of the Novosibirsk State Opera and Orchestra (2004-2010). Commencing this season, Teodor is the Chief Conductor of the SWR Symphony Orchestra.
In his first year with SWR, Teodor’s programmes will include Mahler 3, 4, Tchaikovsky 5 and Shostakovich 7 in performances at home and on tour visiting the Vienna Konzerthaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Cologne Philharmonie.
With musicAeterna, Teodor will return to Europe for performances of ‘La Traviata’ in Cologne Philharmonie and in Luxembourg as well as returning to Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Brussels with programmes including Mahler 4, Philippe Hersant’s ‘Tristia’ and Verdi Requiem. musicAeterna will make their Japanese debut tour including a performance in Suntory Hall.
Teodor returns to the Mahler Chamber Orchestra performing Brahms Requiem with musicAeterna choir as part of the Diaghilev Festival, Perm and on tour in Europe.
Past highlights of Teodor’s career include: Resident Artist at the Vienna Konzerthaus beginning 2016/17 including concerts with Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg and musicAeterna; a new production of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Titowith Peter Sellars at the Salzburg Festival with musicAeterna which then transferred to Dutch Opera where Teodor made his debut in 2018, the BBC Proms with MusicAeterna in July 2018, a return visit to the Salzburg Festival 2018 with musicAeterna for Beethoven’s Symphonies 1-9 in five sell out concerts, a tour with Mahler Chamber Orchestra of Berio’s Coro; Clemenza di tito and Mozart’s Requiemat Salzburg Festival, Verdi’s Macbethat Zurich Opera with Barrie Kosky (2016); Wagner’s Das Rheingoldwith musicAeterna orchestra (2015, RUHRtriennale in Bochum); Tchaikovsky Iolanthe and Stravinsky Persephone at Aix Festival (2015) which premiered in Madrid in 2012; Purcell’s The Indian Queen in Madrid (2012); Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk Districtin Zurich (2012) and Weinberg’s The Passengerwith the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Bregenz (2010).
As Artistic Director of Perm Opera, Teodor has commissioned several important new works, including Phillipe Hersants ‘Tristia’ (2016), Dmitrii Kourliandski’s opera Nosferatu(2014), Alexei Syumak’s opera Cantos(2016), and a violin concerto by Sergey Nevsky (2015).
Teodor Currentzis and musicAeterna are exclusive Sony artists and have released the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6along with Mahler’s Symphony No. 6which is soon to be released. Previous recordings include Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14, Mozart’s Requiem and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas all on the Alpha label and the Shostakovich Piano Concertos with Alexander Melnikov and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on the Harmonia Mundi label.
In 2017, ECHO Klassik awarded the DVD/Blu-ray production of Purcell’s Indian Queen, directed by Peter Sellers,with Teodor and musicAeterna, following on from a previous ECHO Klassik award in 2016 for ‘Symphonic Recording (20th/21st century music)’ for their recording of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, both released on Sony Classical. In 2015, Teodor and his brother Vangelino Currentzis, recorded and composed the soundtrack of the European Games opening ceremony in Baku and were nominated for an Emmy Award, in the category of Outstanding Music Direction and Composition. Teodor Currentzis was awarded the Order of Friendship of the Russian Federation in 2008, and was the recipient of the Toepfer Foundation’s prestigious Kairos Award in 2016. The same year, Opernwelt named Teodor Currentzis Best Conductor of the Year for his Macbethat Zurich Opera.
Teodor has so far been awarded seven Golden Masks – Russia’s prestigious theatre award – most recently in 2017 as Best Opera Conductor for La Traviata, a Perm Opera production directed by Robert Wilson. Previous awards include the Best Opera Conductor award (Indian Queen2015 and Cosi Fan Tutte, Perm 2013and Wozzeck, Bolshoi 2011), for a “brilliant performance of Prokofiev’s score” (Cinderella, 2007) and for “outstanding results in the area of authentic performance” (The Marriage of Figaro, 2008).
In 2006, combining his knowledge and passion for early music with contemporary composers and new music, Teodor started the Territoria Modern Art Festival, which in a short space of time has become the most prestigious and progressive annual music festival in Moscow. Since 2012, Teodor has also curated the Diaghilev Festival, held in the home of the composer’s birth town in Russia.
Born in Greece, Russia has become Teodor’s home since the beginning of the 1990s, when he began studying conducting at the state conservatory of St. Petersburg, under the tutelage of Professor Ilya Musin, whose pupils, among others, were renowned conductors Odyseuss Dimitriadis, Valery Gergiev, and Semyon Bychkov.