Profile

 Born in Weimar, Golo Berg obtained his musical formation in his hometown with the renowned conductor-pedagogue Prof. Gunter Kahlert. Specialized master classes allowed him to work with Lorin Maazel, Luciano Berio, Michael Gielen, Lothar Zagrosek, Gerd Albrecht, Rudolf Barschai and Dmitri Kitajenko and other famous contemporary musicians. At the age of 20 years, he was already a finalist of the “Arturo Toscanini” Conducting Competition in Parma/Italy. The first engagements led the 21 year-old Golo Berg to the Landestheater Mecklenburg, where he was appointed chief conductor, thus becoming one of the youngest chief conductors in the world. Subsequently, he was appointed musical director and principal conductor at the Theater Hof, respectively to the Symphony Orchestra of the City of Hof and afterwards chief conductor (Generalmusikdirekor) at the Anhaltisches Theater Dessau.



The conductor made numerous radio recordings with the Anhaltische Philharmonic, amongst others for the MDR andDeutschlandradio and produced a series of CDs with the well reputed label cpo, which entirely received best reviews in the specialized press. In 2008 ARTHAUS released a DVD of Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”, conducted by him and directed by Johannes Felsenstein.

Golo Berg has been acting as a conductor for over 20 years and has thus developed a very wide and diversified concert repertoire that comprises almost all prevalent symphonic standard works. His attention has also been directed at contemporary music, whereof he conducted over 50 debut performances. Golo Berg also ranks among the most successful opera conductors of his generation. His repertoire currently includes over 80 distinct stage works. He has acted as a guest conductor, at the operas in, for example, Leipzig, Cologne, Mannheim and St. Gallen. During recent years, his interpretations of Wagners “Tristan und Isolde” and “Parsifal”, Verdi’s early Schiller-Operas „Giovanna d’ Arco“, „I Masnadieri“ and „Luisa Miller“ as well as of Mussorgskis „Boris Godunow“ called great positive attention from critics and the public. Due to his many years of experience with the stage works of Kurt Weill, he has become a specialist. His most recent musical theater project was Strauss’s “Elektra”, directed by Johannes Felsenstein.



Golo Berg conducted various German orchestras in numerous symphony concerts, for which the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, the NDR Radio Philharmonic Hannover, the Symphony Orchestra of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra can be mentioned representatively. He is also a very well-regarded guest in other European countries like Italy, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland and Great Britain. Recently, he has also worked intensively with orchestras in Asia, like the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra or the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra. Golo Berg regularly acts in China on behalf of the Goethe-Institute; his most recent work took place in autumn 2009 in Wuhan, where he conducted with great success the performance of Tan Dun’s monumental work “Heaven-Earth-Mankind”.



On behalf of the Deutscher Musikrat (German Music Council), where he also acts as a jury member, Golo Berg leads regularly master classes for conductors. As of 2004, he has belonged to the board of directors of the Art Foundation of the Federal State of Sachsen-Anhalt, as a founding member.