The concert of musicAeterna orchestra led by Teodor Currentzis opens the Fifth Season of the Zaryadye Hall.

Teodor Currentzis is the founding father and art director of orchestra and choir called musicAeterna. He also is the chief conductor of the German SWR Symphony Orchestra.

Currentzis was born in Greece, and it was there where his music education started. At age of 4 he began to take piano lessons, at age 7, he began violin lessons, to later study singing. In 1987, aged 15, he began composition studies under Professor George Hadjinikos, and then in 1989 under Professor B. Shreck. In 1994, Teodor came to Russia in order to study with Ilya Musin, a legendary Peterburg conservatory professor; his life is closely connected with Russia ever since.

From 2004 to 2010, Currentzis served as principal conductor of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, where in 2004 he founded the Orchestra MusicAeterna and later the Chorus MusicAeterna. Since February 2011, Currentzis has been music director of the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, to which he brought both of his MusicAeterna groups. During his tenure with the Opera, the conductor managed to re-new repertoire that was thought as “traditional” for Russian music theatre. He and musicAeterna introduced to the public either medieval sacred music, baroque operas, as well contemporary avantgarde pieces that he commissioned from contemporary composers, for instance choir opera “Tristia” (Philippe Hersant, 2016), opera “Cantos” (Alexey Syumak, 2016), Violin Concerto (Sergey Nevsky, 2015), opera “Nosferatu” (Dmitry Kurlyandsky, 2014).

In 2006, he was one of the founders of “Territoria” – an international festival / school of contemporary art. From 2012, Teodor is the art director of Diaghilev Festival, that takes place in Perm, the native city of the legendary impresario Sergey Diaghilev.

In summer 2019, Teodor Currentzis and musicAeterna relocate to Saint Petersburg, with Dom Radio being their creative residency. From the season 2018/19, he also is the chief conductor of German SWR Symphony Orchestra – the largest symphony orchestra in Europe.

With musicAeterna as well as with other orchestras, Teodor Currentzis tours Europe and the world, with performances at such venerable venues as the Berlin Philharmonic, Philharmonie de Paris, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, La Scala Milan and the Madrid Auditorio.

They have a long-standing relationship with the Salzburg Festspiele; performances in Salzburg include a new production of La Clemenza di Tito directed by Peter Sellars in 2017 which transferred to Dutch Opera where Teodor made his debut in 2018, a full Beethoven symphonies cycle in 2018 in five sell-out concerts, Idomeneo in 2019 directed by Peter Sellars in collaboration with the Freiburg Baroque and the musicAeterna choir and Don Giovanni in the 2021 Festival. Teodor and musicAeterna made their BBC Proms debut in 2018 and made their Japanese debut in February 2019 with concerts in Tokyo and Osaka. In November 2019, they made their New York debut at The Shed with Verdi’s Requiem alongside moving images from the late Jonas Mekas.

Highlights of Teodor’s career include: his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic with Verdi’s Requiem and the musicAeterna choir; Resident Artist at the Vienna Konzerthaus beginning 2016/17 including concerts with Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, SWR Symphony orchestra and musicAeterna; performing Brahms Requiem with musicAeterna choir and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as part of the Diaghilev Festival, Perm and on tour in Europe; a tour with Mahler Chamber Orchestra of Berio’s Coro; Clemenza di Tito and Mozart’s Requiem at Salzburg Festival, Verdi’s Macbeth at Zurich Opera with Barrie Kosky (2016); Wagner’s Das Rheingold with musicAeterna orchestra (2015, RUHRtriennale in Bochum); Tchaikovsky Iolanthe and Stravinsky Persephone at Aix Festival (2015) which premiered in Madrid in 2012; Purcell’s The Indian Queen in Madrid (2012); Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in Zurich (2012) and Weinberg’s The Passenger with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in Bregenz (2010).

“La Traviata”, his collaboration with Robert Wilson, was premiered in 2016 to great acclaim, and later bring him “Golden Mask” award. In 2018, the production of Arthur Honegger's “Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher” at Diaghilev Festival brought him 2 masks.
Teodor Currentzis & musicAeterna are signed to the Sony Classical, one of three major record labels. The orchestra recordings of Mozart, Mahler, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rameau, and Stravinsky were critically acclaimed, with many prestigious prizes to follow: ECHO Klassik Award, Edison Klassiek, Japanese Record Academy Award, BBC Music Magazine’s Opera Award.

As for Teodor Currentzis himself, he is a nine-times laureate of Russian “Zolotaya Maska” (“Golden Mask”) theater award, as well as a winner of KAIROS prize. He was also decorated with Greece national award “Order of Phoenix”, and Russian “Order of Friendship”. In 2018, musicAeterna choir won International “Opera Awards”, thus declared as the best choir in the world.