Their time together has also included a highly acclaimed collaboration with the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, their many performances there having included productions of Strauss’s Arabella, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Die schweigsame Frau, Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, as well as a critically acclaimed cycle of Brahms symphonies.

In addition, Christoph von Dohnányi has held the position of Chief Conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra since September 2004. As well as giving concerts in major venues throughout Europe (including Lucerne, Cologne, Frankfurt, Bonn, Warsaw and Luxembourg), Dohnányi and the orchestra toured South America in September 2005 (where they were subsequently voted Best Orchestra 2005 and Best Conductor 2005 by the Association of Critics of Buenos Aires). A European concert tour in 2007 was followed by concerts in Carnegie Hall in March 2007 and a tour to Japan in May 2007. In October 2008 they gave a series of concerts in China and Taiwan.

Born in Berlin, Christoph von Dohnányi began to study law in Munich. After two years he chose to join the Munich Academy of Music to study composition, piano and conducting. At the end of his studies he was awarded the Richard Strauss Prize for conducting by the City of Munich and continued to study with his grandfather, Ernst von Dohnányi, at Florida State University.

In 1953 Christoph von Dohnányi was hired as repetiteur and conductor at the Frankfurt Opera by Sir Georg Solti. At the age of 27 he moved to Lübeck where he became Germany’s youngest General Music Director, before becoming Chief Conductor at first in Kassel and then of the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne. From 1968 he served as General Music Director in Frankfurt and, from 1972, as Director of the Frankfurt Opera. From 1977 to 1984 he was Intendant and Chief Conductor of Hamburg Opera. In Frankfurt and Hamburg he aimed to balance traditional opera productions with innovative music theatre.

In December 1981 Christoph von Dohnányi first conducted The Cleveland Orchestra. He was Music Director Designate from 1982 to 1984 and served as its sixth Music Director from September 1984 to August 2002, becoming the orchestra’s first Music Director Laureate from then on. During Dohnányi’s tenure, they toured extensively around the US, Asia and Europe, performing concerts for the Salzburg Festival, BBC Proms and Edinburgh Festival, and were in residence at Carnegie Hall, New York for a number of years. In 1998, they performed in China for the first time in the orchestra’s history. His many recordings with the orchestra include the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, and Wagner’s Die Walküre and Das Rheingold. During Dohnányi’s time as Music Director, Severance Hall, The Cleveland Orchestra’s home, was renovated and extended to bring back one of America’s biggest organs into the musical life of Cleveland.

Dohnányi is also in demand as a guest conductor in the US and regularly conducts such orchestras as those of Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. In Europe, he has been a guest conductor with all the major orchestras including, most recently, the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw, Israel Philharmonic and Zurich Tonhalle. A regular guest conductor at the Zurich Opera House since the early 1990s, he has led new productions there of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Elektra, Die schweigsame Frau and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Mozart’s Idomeneo and a double bill of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Stravinsky’s Oedipus rex.

Christoph von Dohnányi’s discography with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra includes Fidelio, Wozzeck, Lulu, Erwartung, Salome, Der fliegende Holländer and symphonic works by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky. He has recorded the violin concertos of Glass and Schnittke with Gidon Kremer, the Dvořák Piano Concerto with András Schiff and orchestral transcriptions of chamber music by Brahms and Mahler. As a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, Christoph von Dohnányi has led the Vienna Philharmonic in several new productions including Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, Così fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte, Erwartung, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as the world premières of Henze’s Die Bassariden and Cerha’s Baal.