(Photo Credit: Thomas Rabsch)
Antonello Manacorda has been appointed artistic and music director of Les Siècles.
Born in Turin and based in Berlin, Manacorda served as artistic and music director of the Kammerakademie Potsdam from 2010 to 2025. His career was significantly shaped by his close collaboration with conductor Claudio Abbado, who appointed him concertmaster of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in 1994 when he was 24-years-old. He went on to become a founding member and longtime concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
“The contribution of Les Siècles to the interpretation of the French repertoire is essential. I also find myself questioning how Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Schumann or Stravinsky can sound in our own time, in the 21st century, on period instruments. An orchestra like Les Siècles offers the opportunity to engage fully in the rediscovery of European musical traditions. For me, music is a collective adventure, a process of shared listening and discovery,” Manacorda, who has conduced such ensembles as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and the Cleveland Orchestra, among others, said, per an official press release.
Manacorda’s first season as artistic and music director will open at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with a new production of Jules Massenet’s “Thaïs,” presented in a version that restores passages unheard since the opera’s premiere. The full program for the 2027-28 season will be announced in spring 2027. Beginning with the 2026-27 season, the orchestra will welcome Manacorda back for a program centered on Claude Debussy’s “La Mer,” to be performed in Munich and Hamburg.
Founded in 2003 by François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles is orchestra in residence at the Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing and, since the 2022-23 season, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Manacorda’s appointment follows a guest conducting engagement with the orchestra in fall 2025 that included concerts in Amsterdam, Bruges, Tourcoing, and Paris, a collaboration that sparked mutual interest in a longer partnership.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source operawire.com ’
