General Music Director of the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt

Principal Guest Conductor of the Filarmonica TRT

“Young, dynamic, energetic, determined, and full of expressive body language” – this is how the press describes Felix Mildenberger. Since winning the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition in 2018, his career has risen steeply. For two years he served as Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, working closely with Sir Simon Rattle. Further assistantships took him to the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich (Paavo Järvi), the Orchestre National de France (Emmanuel Krivine), and as Cover Conductor to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (including for Bernard Haitink and Mariss Jansons).

In the 2026/27 season, Mildenberger will take up his post as General Music Director of the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt. Furthermore, he will conduct concerts with the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, the Aachen Symphony Orchestra, the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra and the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino.

Praised for his “refined technique and clear musical ideas,” Felix Mildenberger has conducted numerous prestigious orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the DSO Berlin, the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Hannover, the hr Symphony Orchestra, the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, the German Radio Philharmonic, the German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen, Camerata Salzburg, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Ensemble Modern, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and others. The soloists with whom he has worked include Julia Fischer, Lucas & Arthur Jussen, Sabine Meyer, Nils Mönkemeyer, Daniel Lozakovich, Alexei Volodin and James Ehnes.

He also gained valuable operatic experience at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Marc Albrecht), the Aspen Opera Center (Jane Glover), and the Bavarian State Opera (Jukka-Pekka Saraste). In 2024, he made a highly acclaimed debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with George Benjamin’s Written on Skin.

Felix Mildenberger began his musical training in violin, viola, and piano before studying conducting in Freiburg, Vienna, and at the Aspen Music Festival. His teachers included Lutz Köhler, Gerhard Markson, Scott Sandmeier, Massimiliano Matesic, Mark Stringer, and Alexander Burda; further inspiration came from masterclasses with David Zinman, Paavo Järvi, Bernard Haitink, and Markus Stenz. From 2015 to 2017 he himself taught conducting at the Freiburg University of Music and, in 2020, led a masterclass for young conductors during the Mozartwoche.

As a scholarship holder of the Conductors’ Forum, he was selected in 2021 for the “Maestros of Tomorrow” list of the German Music Council. Already in 2020, he became the first conductor to be awarded the Prix Young Artist of the Year at the Festival der Nationen.