German conductor Lothar Zagrosek began his musical career as a member of the Regensburg cathedral choir. He studied conducting with Hans Swarovsky, Istvàn Kertész, Bruno Maderna and Herbert von Karajan.
After his initial positions as General Music Director in Solingen and in Krefeld-Mönchengladbach, he was appointed Chief Conductor of the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna. He then spent three years at the helm of the Paris Opera, during which period he was also Chief Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and, subsequently, became General Music Director of the Leipzig Opera. For many years, he was associated with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie as First Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor. From 1997 to 2006, Lothar Zagrosek was General Music Director of the Stuttgart State Opera. During his highly successful tenure, this company obtained the critics' award "Opera Company of the Year" five times, he himself was named "Conductor of the Year" twice. From 2006 to 2011 he served as Chief Conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin.
Internationally acclaimed for his operatic work, he appeared at many leading houses such as the Vienna Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semperoper Dresden, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and at the Glyndebourne Festival. Guest engagements of the past years led him to Teatro Fenice in Venice, Korean National Opera in Seoul (Parsifal), Staatsoper Hamburg (Katja Kabanova) and Deutsche Oper Berlin where he conducted a new staging of Lachenmann’s Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern. For this performance, he was consequently elected "Conductor of the Year" for the third time. Important new productions of recent years include Berg’s Lulu with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, Elektra at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Braunfels’s Szenen aus dem Leben der Heiligen Johanna at the Opera Cologne and for a particular rarity, the trilogy The Dictator / The Secret Kingdom / Heavyweight or The Pride of the Nation by Ernst Krenek at the Oper Frankfurt. At the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl, he achieved a resounding success with Walter Braunfels' rarely performed opera Die Vögel.
