Jakob Lehmann

/

Berlin, Germany

Associate Artistic Director
Primo violino e capo d’orchestra (I Capuleti e i Montecchi)

Photo by Sercan Sevindik

Previously with Teatro Nuovo:

2018~2023

Bio:

Jakob Lehmann is a young musician for whom stylistic awareness and historically informed performance are the pillars of emotionally sincere and energetic interpretations. His dual aims of fidelity to the composer’s intentions with their direct conveyance to his modern audiences guide his diverse musical activities. Jakob regards as one of his main objectives the collaborative convergence of historically informed performance styles with more traditional approaches.

Jakob works as an energetic and inspiring conductor with symphonic orchestras such as Wiener Symphoniker, Tonkünstler Orchester, Bochumer Symphoniker, Brandenburger Symphoniker, and Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Lorraine, as well as period instrument groups such as Concerto Köln, Orchestra of the 18th Century, {OH!} - Orkiestra Historyczna, La Banda Storica Bern, and the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra. He enjoys collaborations with instrumental soloists such as Pierre Génisson, Tobias Koch, Niklas Liepe, Sergey Malov, Aaron Pilsan, Lucienne Rénaudin-Vary, Shunske Sato, Dmitry Shiskin and Chouchane Siranossian and singers like Lioba Braun, Karine Deshayes, Mojca Erdmann, Véronique Gens, Rachel Harnisch, Malin Hartelius, Daniel Johannsen, Tamara Mumford, Julia Sophie Wagner, and Manuel Walser.

He is the Artistic Director of Eroica Berlin, a chamber orchestra he founded in 2015 and which performed at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie for the first time in 2020. The group consists of young musicians from Berlin and focuses on translating the impulses and inspirations from period performance to modern instruments.

The music of Gioachino Rossini and the Belcanto period is a field in which Jakob is particularly active, both as a performer as well as in his research. His contract as Associate Artistic Director of New York based Belcanto festival Teatro Nuovo, first signed in 2019, has been recently renewed until 2025. His conducting of Rossini’s music has been described by the press as “a revelation,” “extraordinary,” and “one of the most moving Rossini performances that New York has experienced in recent times.”

As a presenter, lecturer, and coach for the topics of Romantic performance practice and the Belcanto style, Jakob is working with institutions such as The Juilliard School New York, the Hochschule der Künste Bern, Concerto Köln, and the Conservatorio Guido Cantelli in Novara. In 2023, he was elected as the President of the German Rossini Society and further is a member of the American Rossini Society.

Jakob began his career in 2015 as a sought-after concertmaster of numerous historical as well as modern orchestras with conductors such as René Jacobs, Alondra de la Parra, Kristiina Poska, Jordi Savall, Steven Sloane, and Andreas Spering. Since 2022, he has concentrated fully on conducting and chamber music.