Clemens Heil
Conductor
Clemens Heil was recently assigned General Music Director of the Lucerne Theatre, Switzerland, beginning season 2016/2017. With Lucerne Symphony Orchestra he will perform operas and concerts at the theatre and in the Lucerne Festival.
Being Principal Kapellmeister of Theater Bremen since 2012, Clemens Heil has conducted a big epertory of new productions like Janacek's The Macropoulos Affair and Martinu's Juliette as well as Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro, Verdi's Rigoletto and La Traviata, Wagner's Die Meistersinger and The flying Dutchman, Britten's Peter Grimes, Puccini's Tosca and La Boheme and Weber's Der Freischütz.
Clemens Heil studies conducting and piano in Stuttgart and Freiburg. He gained experience conducting choirs in the State Operas in Stuttgart and Hanover. With the production of Luigi Nono’s Al gran sole in Hanover the choir - prepared by Clemens Heil - received the title Choir of the Year’ awarded by the magazine ‘Opernwelt’. Working as accompanist and conductor at Staatstheater Mainz, he mastered a wide repertory from the baroque to contemporary music.
In 2007–08 he conducted numerous projects with the International Ensemble Modern Akademy (IEMA), for instance at the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Klangwerktage Hamburg and the at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe. Further more he directed several productions at the „Schauspiel Frankfurt“ like the Threepenny Opera with Ensemble Modern.
His collaboration with Peter Eötvös, Simone Young, Kent Nagano and Franck Ollu (as their assistant) provided him with numerous impulses for his artistic work. He also worked as assistant to Mauricio Kagel and, after the latter’s death, conducted concerts dedicated to his memory presented by Ensemble Modern at the Transart Festival in Brixen and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt.
His passion for the tradition of contemporary music and premieres of new pieces regularly takes him back to the Ensemble Modern for concerts among others at the eclat Festival Stuttgart, the Warsaw Autumn, the Ultima Festival Oslo and the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ.
Other ensembles and orchestras conducted by Clemens Heil include: the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie (at the Festival Freispiel in Frankfurt, 2010), Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland Pfalz (2012), Staatsorchester Hannover, Sinfonieorchester Aachen, Bielefelder Philharmoniker, Brandenburger Philharmoniker and St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra.
He also appears as a chamber musician and song accompanist.