Titus angel

Titus Engel (* 1975 in Zurich ) is a Swiss conductor . In addition to his occupation with symphonic works from the 19th and 20th centuries, he has a great passion for baroque music and historical performance practice, unusual projects and concert formats, and contemporary operas.

Education

Engel first studied musicology and philosophy at the University of Zurich and at the Humboldt University in Berlin with a master's degree. He then took up conducting studies with Christian Kluttig at the Dresden University of Music . He then attended master classes with Sir Colin Davis , Peter Eötvös and Ilja Mussin . Funding from the Conductors' Forum of the German Music Council (2002–2005) and the foundation of David Zinman's American Academy of Conducting at Aspen supplemented his training. He also worked as an assistant to Sylvain Cambreling , Marc Albrecht and Peter Rundel . Today (as of 2016) Titus Engel lives in Berlin.

Musical career

Titus Engel made his operatic debut in 2000 with the world premiere of Benjamin Schweitzer's Jakob von Gunten at the Dresden Days of Contemporary Music . Since then he has directed many performances in different branches on different stages, for example Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Radialsystem V Berlin and at the Theater an der Wien , several operas in the Theater Kampnagel Hamburg and in the Oper Stuttgart up to Glass ' Akhnaten at the Opera Vlaanderen Antwerp / Ghent . At the invitation of Gerard Mortier , he made his debut at the Teatro Real Madrid with the world premiere of Pilar Jurados La página en blancoim in February 2011. He is now a regular guest there: In 2014, Charles Wuorinen's opera Brokeback Mountain was premiered under his direction . In June 2016 he conducted the Swiss premiere and the third complete performance of Stockhausen's Thursday from the Licht am Theater Basel . The production received the award “Performance of the Year” in the Opernwelt 2016 critics' survey .

Engel has conducted numerous renowned orchestras such as the Orchester de l'Opéra de Paris, the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg , several radio symphony orchestras , the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, the Bern Symphony Orchestra , the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Danish National Chamber Orchestra as well as several chamber orchestras in the southern German-Swiss area. He is also regularly invited to the leading ensembles for contemporary music. From 2000 to 2012 he was musical director of the ensemble courage . He premiered numerous works ( Sergej Newski , Leo Dick, Elena Mendoza , Olga Neuwirth , Michael Wertmüller , Rebecca Saunders ) and others. a. at the RuhrTriennale , the Berlin Festival , the Lucerne Festival , MaerzMusik , the Donaueschinger Musiktage , the Salzburg Festival and Opera d'hoy Madrid.

Projects in 2017 were the world premieres of Elena Mendoza's opera La ciudad de las mentirasaus at the Teatro Real Madrid and Mozart's La Betulia Liberata at the Frankfurt Opera. The world premiere of Infinite Now by Chaya Czernowin at the Vlaanderen Opera and the Nationaltheater Mannheim was voted "World Premiere of the Year" in 2017 by the opera world.

The German stage described him as a “directing dervish”, who safely guided all actors through breakneck rapids.

Recordings

Titus Engel has recorded numerous works for radio, television and CDs, including at WERGO Benjamin Schweitzer's chamber music with ensemble courage and the project 21-Auftakt, with works by H. Pohjanorro, P. Haapanen, R. Gubler and C. Neidhöfer, ensemble courage at en-avant records. In cooperation with ZDF-ARTE, he made several first recordings of historical and contemporary silent film music. The recording of the world premiere opera Brokeback Mountain was released on DVD in autumn 2015.

Awards

2003: Fellow of the American Academy of Conducting Aspen under the direction of David Zinman
2002–2005: Funded by the German Music Council (Conductors' Forum)
2016: Performance of the year with Thursday out of light in the Opernwelt's critics' survey

additional

Together with Viktor Schoner, Titus Engel initiated the Academy of Music Theater Today and the Ligerzer Opera Workshop. He is the editor of several books on contemporary opera.

Publications

Generation-Oper: fifteen young commentaries on the situation of the opera; Titus Engel, Stefan Fragner, Viktor Schoner; Peacock, 2001 [1]
Libretto: contemporary positions by composers, writers and interpreters for the Ligerzer Opernwerkstatt 2005; Titus Engel, Viktor Schooner; Peacock, 2006 [2]
Contemporary comic opera: Positions of composers, writers and interpreters for the 3rd Ligerzer Opernwerkstatt 2007; Titus Angel; Peacock, 2010 [3]