Philipp von Steinaecker joins Mahler Chamber Orchestra tour

Philipp von Steinaecker jumps in next week to tour with Mahler Chamber Orchestra, conducting a programme of Schubert’s Seventh Symphony, ‘Unfinished’, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony. They visit Vienna Konzerthaus (26 May), Berlin Philharmonie (27 May) and Cologne Philharmonie (28 May), ending the tour in Augsburg (29 May). 

Von Steinaecker was a founding member of the orchestra in 1997, as a cellist, working with Claudio Abbado, who encouraged his transition to conducting. He has gone on to conduct orchestras including Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, SWR Symphonieorchester and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. 

His curiosity about historical performance led him to set up his own ‘originalklang’ project with Mahler Academy Orchestra, bringing together professionals from Europe’s top ensembles and gifted young musicians to perform Mahler symphonies on the instruments the composer himself would have known. The orchestra toured Europe with the Fifth Symphony in 2024 and their recording of the Ninth Symphony won critical acclaim, including SWR Kultur describing it as ‘a sensational new recording that would have earned ten stars’ and a Schallplattenkritik nomination.