Gordon Safari is a versatile artistic personality and lives with his family in Salzburg, Austria. As a conductor, he pursues a busy international concert career. He has been honoured with the Lower Saxony Culture Prize and the City of Salzburg Culture Prize. Gordon Safari has been a lecturer in oratorio at the Mozarteum University since 2020. He completed his musical training at the HMTMH Hanover, where he studied conducting, music theory, composition and church music, while Chinese pianist Lei Meng is a professor of piano and piano didactics at the Mozarteum University and a lecturer at the International Summer Academy. She regularly holds masterclasses and is a jury member of international piano competitions.
As a conductor, Safari is committed to direct, lively music-making. He is also characterised by his wide-ranging repertoire and a profound knowledge of styles and works. As part of his conducting activities, Safari is particularly interested in rediscovering forgotten or unknown repertoire. In the course of this, he regularly produces first copies, reconstructions of incomplete surviving works and first recordings on disc.
Gordon Safari has worked with the Hanover Symphony Orchestra, the Prussian Chamber Orchestra Potsdam and the Orchestra of the Tyrolean Festival Erl, among others. He is also a regular guest conductor at international festivals and concert series (including Mozartwoche Salzburg, Bachfest Leipzig, Volksoper Wien, Bachwoche Greifswald, Telemann-Tage Magdeburg, Südtirolfestival Meran, Tiroler Festspiele Erl, Internationale Barocktage Melk, Thüringer Bachwochen, Weingartener Spielzeit, Staufener Musikwoche, Kempen Klassik and others).
Safari is the artistic director of the Ensemble BachWerkVokal Salzburg, which he founded in 2015. It is recognised by critics as one of the most interesting new ensembles in the field of historical performance practice. BachWerkVokal is a regular guest at international festivals and concert series. The four albums released to date, ‘Cantate Domino’ (2019), ‘Jesu meine Freude’ (2021), ‘Genug’ (2022) and ‘Jauchzet & lobet’ (2024), have received excellent reviews from the specialised press. All recordings have been nominated several times for the Opus Klassik, the German Record Critics' Award and the ICM Awards.
‘The best debut in early music for a long time (...)
Gordon Safari: A name to remember’
(Deutschlandfunk Kultur)
Another creative vein of Safari's work is the progressive chamber opera Salzburg, which he founded in 2020 together with Konstantin Paul and Michael Hofer-Lenz. The artistic focus of this project is particularly on the repertoire of the 20th and 21st centuries. The chamber opera experiments with new concepts of music theatre and seeks new, contemporary forms of expression through the inclusion of media and digitality.
Bold, avant-garde themes are brought to the stage that are dedicated to the portrayal of pressing current problems. With the digital operas ‘Tag 47’ and ‘Im Westen nichts Neues’, for example, the Salzburg Chamber Opera caused an international sensation. A special format of the chamber opera - with which Safari made a guest appearance at the Volksoper Vienna - is the ‘Improv Night’, which brings together opera and improvisation in a completely new way.
A passion for conducting forms the centre of Gordon Safari's diverse activities. A look into the future reveals that the focus is on intensified collaboration with symphony orchestras and opera houses.