GENERAL MANAGEMENT
Music Director Bruckner Orchester and Theatre Linz
Direttore Principale Orchestra della Svizzera italiana
Chief Conductor Designate Sinfonieorchester Basel (from 2025/26)
Since taking over as principal conductor of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz in 2017, Markus Poschner and the top Austrian ensemble have enthused audiences and the international press alike. His foremost vision is to find new Bruckner interpretations. In 2020 he and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz received the Austrian awards “Orchestra of the Year" and "Conductor of the Year".
Markus Poschner’s recording of the complete Brahms symphonies for Sony Classical with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, whose chief conductor he has been since 2015, featured a completely new reading of these works and promptly won the prestigious International Classical Music Award (ICMA) in 2018. His recording of Offenbach’s Maître Péronilla with the Orchestre National de France was celebrated by the press, also winning the German Record Critics’ Award in 2021.
In 2024, Markus Poschner received Special Achievement Award by the Jury of the International Classical Music Awards for his monumental cycle of the complete Bruckner Symphonies edition with Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.
As of the 2025/26 season, Markus Poschner will become Chief Conductor of the Basel Symphony Orchestra with whom he has proclaimed the credo of "touching people with our…
Music Director Bruckner Orchester and Theatre Linz
Direttore Principale Orchestra della Svizzera italiana
Chief Conductor Designate Sinfonieorchester Basel (from 2025/26)
Since taking over as principal conductor of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz in 2017, Markus Poschner and the top Austrian ensemble have enthused audiences and the international press alike. His foremost vision is to find new Bruckner interpretations. In 2020 he and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz received the Austrian awards “Orchestra of the Year" and "Conductor of the Year".
Markus Poschner’s recording of the complete Brahms symphonies for Sony Classical with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, whose chief conductor he has been since 2015, featured a completely new reading of these works and promptly won the prestigious International Classical Music Award (ICMA) in 2018. His recording of Offenbach’s Maître Péronilla with the Orchestre National de France was celebrated by the press, also winning the German Record Critics’ Award in 2021.
In 2024, Markus Poschner received Special Achievement Award by the Jury of the International Classical Music Awards for his monumental cycle of the complete Bruckner Symphonies edition with Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.
As of the 2025/26 season, Markus Poschner will become Chief Conductor of the Basel Symphony Orchestra with whom he has proclaimed the credo of "touching people with our music and intensity."
Since winning the German Conductors Award, Markus Poschner has made guest appearances at many internationally renowned orchestras and opera houses, including Staatskapelle Berlin, Bamberger Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Dresden, Münchner Philharmoniker, Dresdner Philharmonie, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, RSB Berlin, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Netherlands Philharmonic, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, NHK Tokio and Utah Symphony Orchestra as well as being present at Opera houses in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Zurich.
After studying in Munich and assisting Sir Roger Norrington and Sir Colin Davis, Markus Poschner worked as 1st Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper Berlin. From 2007 to 2017, he was GMD of the Bremen Philharmonic. In July 2010, the University of Bremen appointed him honorary professor, a title also given to him by Anton Bruckner University Linz in 2020.
Markus Poschner conducted the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra for the first time at its extraordinary guest performance in Abu-Dhabi 2019 with Wagner's Walküre. In July 2022 he opened the Bayreuth Festival conducting Tristan und Isolde and returned there for the revival of the production in 2023.
The Bruckner Orchester Linz's performance combined both the epic and the intimate in a way one doesn’t often see. The immediacy of the sound was obvious from the first tremolo of the opening movement, flung out vigorously by Markus Poschner. […] There was no compromise in the intense despair which punctuates the movement [… ] and the wild col legno passage later on was utterly compelling. […] The lightness of touch in the strings allowed the music to flow effortlessly through the Ländler, which Poschner allowed to remain suitably bucolic, and never overly mannered. There were also some fabulous pianissimos, where even a whole section would make themselves scarcely audible.
02.08.2023
