Acknowledged as one of the finest conductors the United Kingdom has ever produced, Jan Latham-Koenig’s career spans a remarkably diverse operatic and symphonic spectrum. Recent highlights have Thaïs for the Göteborg Opera, I Puritani for Vienna Staatsoper, Nozze di Figaro at the Finnish National Opera, Lohengrin for Tampereen Oopera and Tristan in Prague.
His future concert appearances include The Qingdao Symphony Orchestra and Bochumer Symphoniker, and operatic engagements include La Traviata for the Royal Opera Covent Garden in 2011, and Viaggio a Reims at the Finnish National Opera in 2012.
A true European at heart (coming from French, Danish and Polish origin) he studied at the Royal College of Music, London, before going on to win the coveted Gulbenkian Fellowship. His debut conducting Macbeth at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1988 was a sensational success, and catapulted him almost over-night to international fame, going on to conduct well over 100. Since then he has been at the helm during many of the world’s greatest operatic and symphonic moments, including Aida (with casts including Bumbry, Bonisolli and Capuccilli), Macbeth, La Bohème, Peter Grimes, Tristan, Pelléas et Mélisande (his appearances last year with the Canadian Opera Company were a particular triumph), Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt”, “Carmen”, “Turandot” and “Elektra”, and the ballet “The Prince of the Pagodas”, to name but a few. Other outstanding appearances have included Henze’s Venus & Adonis for the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova, Tosca for the Opéra National Paris-Bastille, Jenufa and Hamlet for the Royal Danish Opera, King Roger for Teatro Massimo di Palermo, the both the Chilean première of Peter Grimes and I Lombardi, in Santiago. Additional personal successes have included “Dialogues des Carmelites” for both Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires and Opéra National du Rhin (the latter winning both the Claude-Rostand Best Regional Production Prize 1999 and the Diapason d’or for best opera video in 2001). He later made a triumphant appearance with this work at the BBC Proms.
He has enjoyed musical Directorships with ensembles and organizations including the Orchestra of Porto (which he founded at the request of the Portuguese government), the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, Teatro Massimo di Palermo and both the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Opéra national du Rhin. As Principal Guest Conductor he has enjoyed highly-successful tenures at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Filarmonica del Teatro Regio di Torino and he currently holds the Artistic Directorship of both the Young Janaček Philharmonic and (from 2006) Music Director at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago.
His numerous guest and concert appearances have included the New Japan Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the orchestras of Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Sudwestfunk and Baden-Baden in Germany. His appearances with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome have also included the Beethoven Piano Concertos with Evgeny Kissin.
More recently, in 2007, his appearances included Beatrice et Benedict at Chicago Opera Theater and The Cunning Little Vixen at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Last year also saw the release of his first CD with the Filarmonica del Teatro Regio in a programme of Poulenc which was voted Record of the Month by BBC Music magazine, while Lohengrin at the Novaya Opera in Moscow (the first production in the city in 70 years, and directed by Kasper Bech Holten) feature amongst his most recent engagements.