Daniel Geiss

Daniel Geiss is considered one of the most versatile musicians of his generation: he has been the artistic and musical director of the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra since 2020.

The BrixenClassics Festival also appointed him music director in autumn 2020. In autumn 2022 he was also appointed General Music Director of the Neubrandenburg Philharmonic and the Neustrelitz State Theater. Daniel Geiss has been active as a conductor for almost two decades, and also as a cellist and lecturer.

Born in Essen, he first studied orchestral conducting with David Effron, violoncello with Janos Starker and chamber music with Menahem Pressler at Indiana University Bloomington. A move to the Hochschulefür Musik Köln brought him to Michael Luig (orchestral conducting), the Alban Berg Quartet (chamber music) and Maria Kliegel (violoncello). Courses with George Crumb and Philip Glass provided in-depth knowledge.

His conducting career started in the USA with the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra. In the following years he worked at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Teatro Real Madrid and with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Geiss conducted the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, the South Westphalia Philharmonic and made his debut in the Berlin Philharmonic hall.

The 2018/19 season took Daniel Geiss to Budapest, Linz, Ljubljana, St. Petersburg and Graz. His intensive collaboration with Katharina Wagner as a director began in 2019 – with a version of the “Flying Dutchman” as a children's opera specially set up for the Spring Festival Tokyo.

Their success was confirmed by two direct re-invitations for 2020 (“Tristan und Isolde”) and 2021 (“Parsifal”). In 2019 he also conducted at the Musikfest Leipzig and the opening concert of the 44th CantiereInternationaled'Arte Festival in Montepulciano.

The first two editions of the Brixen Classics Festival in June 2021/22 can be noted as great success: Daniel Geiss conducted concerts and concert opera productions with Camilla Nylund, Sir Bryn Terfel, Daniel Hope, Juan Diego Florez, Michael Volle, Albrecht Mayer and others. In the summer In 2021 he conducted an open-air concert at the Bayreuth Festival with soloists such as Klaus Florian Vogt and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.

In December 2022, Geiss conducted 7 sold-out concerts at the Elbphilharmonie with the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra, Daniel Hope, Katharina Thalbach, Lucienne Renaudin Vary and Fatma Said.