Conductor & Pianist
Principal Guest Conductor Orchestra del Friuli Venezia Giulia
Artistic Director Kultur.Sommer.Semmering
Artistic Director Bösendorfer Festival Wiener Neustadt
Celebrated on international stages as both a soloist and a conductor, Florian Krumpöck is an exceptional figure in the international concert scene, mastering an immense operatic, concert and piano repertoire. He particularly fascinates his audience in the dual role of soloist and conductor.
In September 2024, he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra del Friuli Venezia Giulia. In October 2023, his debut album for Sony Classical featuring solo works by Frédéric Chopin was released. With this programme, he has performed at some of the most important concert halls worldwide, such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Salle Cortot in Paris, as well as in Munich and Madrid. This was followed by the release of a recital DVD from the main hall of the Wiener Musikverein with works by Franz Schubert, Alban Berg and Franz Liszt – recorded in May 2020. As the first production from the Golden Hall created with Dolby Atmos, the recital will also be available worldwide via Amazon Video from the end of January 2025.
In the 2021/2022 season, Florian Krumpöck took on the critically acclaimed new production of Janáček‘s Jenůfa at the Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse. Recent and upcoming engagements include performances with the Haydn Orchestra Bolzano, the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra at the Rudolfinum in Prague and at the Wiener Musikverein, and the Korean Symphony Orchestra.
Numerous CD recordings as a pianist and conductor, radio broadcasts and various television portraits testify to the artist‘s diverse work. Furthermore, in September 2017 Florian Krumpöck began a complete recording of the 32 piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven as well as a complete recording of all the completed piano sonatas of Franz Schubert.
‘Forget Lang Lang and Arcadi Volodos. Austria, too, has highly virtuosic keyboard artists,’ was how the daily newspaper Die Presse reported the pianist‘s solo debut at the Wiener Konzerthaus.
The son of a cellist and an art historian, he had the good fortune to have Rudolf Buchbinder, Gerhard Oppitz and Elisabeth Leonskaja – some of the most important pianists of our time – as his teachers from an early age.
Sir Peter Ustinov introduced the young musician to a wide audience at an early stage. Daniel Barenboim simply said after a performance: ‘A wonderful pianist’ and thus paved the way for a promising international career.
Following sensational reviews after his debut at the Tonhalle Zurich with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Moscow under Vladimir Fedoseyev, he was invited to perform in major European music centres, including Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Zurich and Moscow, as well as in Israel, the United States, China and South Korea.
Highly acclaimed solo recitals at international festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Bregenz Festival, the Bad Kissingen Music Summer, the Leipzig Bach Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Music Festival and the Vienna Klangbogen further consolidated his career.
Florian Krumpöck regularly performs as a soloist in major concert halls, such as the Wiener Musikverein, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Tonhalle Zürich, the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg or the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and has played several complete cycles of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s 32 piano sonatas, among other things.
At the suggestion of his mentor Daniel Barenboim, Florian Krumpöck expanded his repertoire to include numerous symphonic works and operas, and increasingly devoted himself to conducting.
In 2006, he caused an international sensation for the first time as a conductor when he stepped in to make his debut with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. In 2007, he conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra with great success at a New Year‘s concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington and was engaged at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, where he worked with former director of the Vienna Burgtheater Matthias Hartmann, among others.
In 2011, Florian Krumpöck was appointed General Music Director of Concert and Opera at the Volkstheater Rostock and Chief Conductor of the North German Philharmonic Orchestra. In this role, he conducted numerous music theatre premieres and symphony concerts with the Norddeutsche Philharmonie, including a Mahler cycle, a Beethoven marathon with the nine symphonies performed on four consecutive days, and several concerts as conducting soloist.
In 2012, he was also appointed Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra. Over the following three years, he was the driving force behind the orchestra‘s highly successful artistic reorganisation, during which time he became the country‘s most important cultural ambassador. The collaboration with some of the most important soloists of our time marked the artistic rise of the orchestra, as did the completely sold-out subscription concert cycle.
Despite the Norddeutsche Philharmonie‘s desire to extend the collaboration beyond the term of the contract, Florian Krumpöck decided to work on a purely freelance basis. Among other things, he subsequently made his debut at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, conducting the Royal Danish Orchestra in two open-air concerts and in a performance of Der Rosenkavalier, staged by Marco Arturo Marelli.
Florian Krumpöck has appeared as a guest conductor with major orchestras: he has conducted the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra Lisbon, the Royal Danish Orchestra Copenhagen, the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Nuremberg Philharmonic, the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the orchestra of the Opéra National de Montpellier, as well as numerous orchestras in China and South Korea. In 2012, he was also the premiere conductor of Rigoletto at the Opera Festival in Gars am Kamp.
In 2015, he conducted the traditional New Year‘s Concert at the Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg, with Beethoven‘s Ninth Symphony.
He also received rave reviews for his work at various opera galas, for example with soloists Angelika Kirchschlager, Michael Schade, Juan Diego Florez and Piotr Beczała. He also regularly appears as a song pianist with Angelika Kirchschlager, Michael Schade and Günther Groissböck.
Since the 2018/19 season, Florian Krumpöck has been working closely with the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse: in October 2018, he conducted the ballet production Dans les pas de Noureev, which was also performed in Montpellier in January 2019 with the Opéra Orchestre National de Montpellier and the Ballet du Capitole.
Florian Krumpöck has been the artistic director of the Kultur.Sommer.Semmering festival since 2015 and the Bösendorfer Festival Wiener Neustadt since 2020.