The Iranian conductor Hossein Pishkar won the prestigious German Conducting Award in 2017, an international competition for young conductors organised by the German Music Council in partnership with Cologne’s leading musical institutions. Additionally in 2017 the German Music Council presented him with the Ernst-von-Schuch Sponsorship Award from the Ernst-von-Schuch Family Foundation.

In the 2024/25 season Hossein Pishkar will debut with the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, Noord Nederlands Orkest, Philharmonisches Orchester Kiel, Wuhan Philharmonic Orchestra and at the Spoleto Festival and the Pazaislis Music Festival Lithuania. He returns to the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Belgrade Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Qatar Philharmonic and the Danish Royal Opera Orchestra.

As a guest conductor Hossein Pishkar appears with the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Danish Royal Opera Orchestra, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Staatsorchester Stuttgart and the WDR-Sinfonieorchester.

Notable debuts in the past have included Bizet’s Carmen (stage direction: Barrie Kosky), Shostakovich’s The Nose (stage direction: Àlex Ollé), Verdi’s Aida and Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito at the Royal Danish Opera, Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (stage direction: Barrie Kosky) at the Staatsoper Stuttgart and Verdi’s Rigoletto (stage direction: Cristina Mazzavillani Muti) at the Ravenna Festival.

As an assistant he worked with François-Xavier Roth in the production of Philippe Manoury’s Lab.Oratorium with the Gürzenich-Orchester and as second conductor he took over performances at the philharmonic halls in Cologne and Paris, as well as at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Hossein Pishkar was an assistant of Sylvain Cambreling at the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie for Berg’s Lulu Suite and Rebecca Saunders’ violin concerto Still.

Hossein Pishkar has received further tuition in masterclasses with Riccardo Muti (Aida in Ravenna in the context of the Italian Opera Academy) and Sir Bernard Haitink (Lucerne Festival Orchestra). He has participated in Germany’s prestigious Dirigentenforum programme, taking classes with John Carewe, Marko Letonja, Nicolás Pasquet, Mark Stringer and Johannes Schlaefli.

Before moving to Düsseldorf to study conducting with Rüdiger Bohn at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, Hossein Pishkar studied composition and piano in Teheran, where he was born. In Iran he has conducted the Teheran Youth Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Teheran Music School.

2024/2025

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