Ernst Theis

Born in Upper Austria, Ernst Theis studied in Vienna at the “Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst” (now the “Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien”).

His beginnings as a conductor lie with the Austrian Chamber Symphony Orchestra, as artistic director and managing director of which he was intensively involved with classical modern music, contemporary music and later also Viennese classical music from 1991-2003. After a stint at the Vienna Volksoper in 1996, he became Kapellmeister there for four years. In the same year, he took part in an international conducting competition as part of the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, which he won first prize in under the chairmanship of Peter Eötvös.

From 2003 to 2013, he was chief conductor of the Dresden State Operetta, which was initially in crisis at the time. Thanks to his decidedly conceptual and visionary approach to artistic work, the continued existence of the theater was secured. In 2011, the political decision was made to build a new theater, and the new theater opened in December 2016.

Today, he works successfully with many orchestras on different continents in an artistic spectrum that ranges from early Viennese classical music to the avant-garde. These include the Symphonieorchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Osaka Symphony Orchestra (JP), the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra (CHN), the orchestras of the German radio stations Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern (SR), Cologne (WDR), Munich (BR), Hanover (NDR), Leipzig (MDR) as well as the RSO Vienna (ORF), the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Slovakian Philharmonic Orchestra and many more. Ernst Theis has been an artist with the renowned Japanese agency JAPAN ARTS since 2015. He made his debut with the Osaka Symphony Orchestra in June 2018.

One of his central artistic activities is the RadioMusiken project, on which he has been working for many years in collaboration with the Akademie der Künste Berlin, Deutschlandradio Kultur, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk and the German CD label CPO as a recording project, both artistically and academically (RadioMusiken project website).

He regularly records for his CD label CPO together with orchestras such as the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Brandenburg State Orchestra (BSOF), the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken/Kaiserlautern and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recently, productions for the BR Klassik label were added. The Tonfilmschlager project has already been released, and the RadioMusiken series was continued in spring 2023 with works by Hanns Eisler and Eduard Künneke. The publication took place in October 2023.

Ernst Theis is currently working with Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaumann together with the Munich Radio Orchestra on an album for Warner Music. The album was released in fall 2023 and is dedicated entirely to the Paris/Vienna/Berlin operetta genre. Joint concerts followed in May 2024 at MÜPA Budapest and in October 2024 at the Festival of Nations. On May 7, 2025, Diana Damrau and Ernst Theis will make a guest appearance at the Vienna Musikverein as part of the Johann Strauss Festival Year.