Ulf Schirmer, born in Eschenhausen near Bremen, studied at the Hamburg University of Music and Performing Arts under Horst Stein, Christoph von Dohnányi, and György Ligeti. In 1980, Ulf Schirmer found his first position at the Mannheim National Theater. His career then took him to the Vienna State Opera, where he served as assistant to Lorin Maazel, among others. As resident conductor, he conducted numerous premieres. From 1988 to 1991, Ulf Schirmer was General Music Director in Wiesbaden and Artistic Director of the Symphony Concerts at the Hessian State Theater. From 1991, he was Resident Conductor at the Vienna State Opera and, in the following years, also worked as a consultant to the Vienna State Opera. In 1995, he became Chief Conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen, where he remained until 1998. In 2000, Ulf Schirmer was appointed Professor of Musical Analysis and Music Dramaturgy at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre. Ulf Schirmer has been Artistic Director of the Munich Radio Orchestra since 2006/2007. As part of his concert activities, he has also worked with the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras, the Vienna and Bamberg Symphony Orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

He was General Music Director of the Leipzig Opera from 2009 and, from 2011 until the end of July 2022, also Artistic Director. There, he conducted Carmen, Hansel and Gretel, La bohème, Lohengrin, Das Rheingold, The Magic Flute, Elektra, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Macbeth, and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, among others. With Wagner 22, in which all of Richard Wagner’s works were performed, he demonstrated his international reputation as a conductor and artistic director.

Numerous engagements have taken him to the Bregenz and Salzburg Festivals, the Vienna State Opera, the Graz Opera, the Paris Opéra Bastille, La Scala in Milan, Tokyo, Geneva, and Israel. He has enjoyed great success with Der Rosenkavalier, Salome, Die Frau ohne Schatten, La bohème, Nabucco, Fidelio, The Flying Dutchman, The Ring of the Nibelung, Parsifal, The Marriage of Figaro, Die Fledermaus, The Greek Passion, Lulu, The Birds, and the world premiere of Gerd Kühr’s Death and the Devil.

In the 2024/25 season, he will return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin with, among other productions, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. This season, he has performed on the concert stage with the Bremen Philharmonic and Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony.

Ulf Schirmer will conduct the concert on 3. August 2025.