Cornelius Meister

Cornelius Meister has been General Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart and the Staatsorchester Stuttgart since 2018. He was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien from 2010 to 2018 as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2020.

His interpretations have received numerous awards, including the Gramophone Award, the International Classical Music Award, the OPUS Klassik as “Conductor of the Year,” the Diapason d’Or, and the German Record Critics’ Award. In 2020, under his direction, the Staatsorchester Stuttgart received the Innovation Prize of the German Orchestra Foundation. A passionate advocate for cultural participation, Cornelius Meister devotes himself to educational and outreach projects for audiences of all ages, which often introduce them to a symphony orchestra for the first time.

In the 2025/26 Stuttgart season he conducts new productions of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Dialogues des Carmélites, as well as revivals of Don Giovanni and Madama Butterfly. With the Staatsorchester Stuttgart he completes the cycle of Mahler’s symphonies. Further engagements in this season include returns to the Wiener Staatsoper and the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien. As a pianist, he has been invited to perform in the Wiener Philharmoniker's chamber music cycle. He continues to strengthen his relationships with orchestras in Valencia, Geneva, Strasbourg and Frankfurt, and makes his debuts in Bordeaux and Warsaw.

His broad repertoire spans works by more than 250 composers, including all the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibelius, and Martinů, as well as all of Richard Strauss’s tone poems. Since performing his first world premiere as a ten-year-old pianist, Cornelius Meister has been committed to contemporary composers; in 2004 he became Pierre Boulez’s assistant.

In the last 20 years Meister has conducted leading symphony and radio orchestras across Europe, Asia, and the USA, as well as Zurich’s period ensemble La Scintilla and the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris. He has appeared at major venues including the Philharmonie Berlin, Philharmonie de Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Kennedy Center Washington, Salzburger Festspiele, Auditorio Nacional Madrid, Wiener Musikverein and Wiener Konzerthaus.

Cornelius Meister’s operatic career began at the age of 21 at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, followed soon after by engagements at the Bayerische Staatsoper München. He has appeared regularly at the Wiener Staatsoper since 2012, at Teatro alla Scala Milan since 2015, and at the Metropolitan Opera New York since 2019. In 2022 he attracted international attention when he stepped in at the Bayreuth Festival; the production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen was subsequently released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon and named "Best Classical Music Performance 2022" by the New York Times.

Born in Hanover in 1980, Cornelius Meister studied piano, cello, horn, conducting and philosophy after graduating from a classical high school. He trained in Hanover with Konrad Meister, Martin Brauß, and Eiji Ōue, and at the Mozarteum Salzburg with Dennis Russell Davies, Jorge Rotter, and Karl Kamper. As a pianist he was a fellow of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. From 2005 to 2012, as General Music Director at the Theater und Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg, and later at the Wiener Musikverein, he play-directed performances of works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Liszt, Gershwin and Arvo Pärt (Credo). In Stuttgart he is currently accompanying a three-year song cycle dedicated to the works of Robert and Clara Schumann.

With a strong commitment to mentoring the next generation, Cornelius Meister has seen many of his former assistants go on to leading roles in the international orchestra and opera world.