Chief Conductor Jakub Hrůša
In September 2016, Jakub Hrůša assumed musical direction of the Bamberg Symphony. »I am very happy that in Jakub Hrůša we have been able to secure a musical director for the Bavarian State Philharmonic in Bamberg who is young and also enjoys a high profile«, says Bavaria's Minister for the Arts, Dr. Ludwig Spaenle. »The position of Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony is extremely demanding; more than any other musician, he is responsible for the artistic standards of this exceptional orchestra. In view of the Bamberg Symphony’s history, which saw its members move from Prague to Bamberg after the war, the new Chief Conductor bridges once more, 70 years after the foundation of the Orchestra, its past and its present.«
»I am truly delighted to be Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony«, says Jakub Hrůša. »Even before I had a chance to conduct this jewel among European orchestras, I had been a huge admirer. They are an embodiment of orchestral culture, with everything imagined by this term. And with the Orchestra having its origins in Prague, we breathe the same musical air, sharing our cultural backgrounds, being artistically and historically very close. With the Bamberg Symphony, every phrase can turn to be a little miracle, and every concert is a transfiguration.«
"Downright blazing with passion, energy and power" at the 2019 BBC Proms, The Times wrote about Jakub Hrůša, born in Brno in the Czech Republic. He is Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and has worked in the same capacity with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. From 2025/2026 he will be General Music Director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
He is a regular guest conductor with the world's leading orchestras: the Berlin, Vienna and Munich Philharmonics, the New York Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago and Boston Symphony, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Lucerne Festival, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Orchestre de Paris and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.
He has conducted opera productions at the Opera of Chicago, the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, the Opéra National de Paris, the Zurich Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival.
For his recordings with the Bamberg Symphony, he received an ICMA for Hans Rott's 1st Symphony in 2023 and an ICMA for Bruckner's 4th Symphony in 2022, the German Record Critics' Award of the Year for Mahler's 4th Symphony, a BBC Music Magazine Award for the recording of Martinů's 4th and Dvořák's Piano Concerto with Ivo Kahánek as well as Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine Award nominations for Martinů Violin Concertos with Frank Peter Zimmermann. He was named Conductor of the Year at the German OPUS KLASSIK Awards 2023.
Jakub Hrůša studied conducting at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where his teachers included Jiří Bělohlávek. He is currently President of the International Martinů Circle and The Dvořák Society, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. He was the inaugural recipient of the Sir Charles Mackerras Prize, and in 2020 was awarded both the Antonín Dvořák Prize by the Czech Republic’s Academy of Classical Music, and – together with Bamberg Symphony – the Bavarian State Prize for Music.