Kai Röhrig | © Elsa Okazaki
Deputy Department Head
Teacher
Curricularcommission

Univ.-Prof. MMag.

Kai Röhrig

Univ..Prof. for Musical Dramatic Representation (musical)Department Opera & Musical Theatre
German conductor Kai Röhrig is passionately dedicated to music theater in all its facets. Stylistic diversity and a wide-ranging repertoire characterize his work as a conductor and pedagogue. Since 2014 he has been teaching as a university professor in the Department of Opera and Music Theater and has conducted numerous opera productions. 
Together with the director Karoline Gruber he worked on Benjamin Britten's "A Midsummer Nights Dream", Francis Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmelitès" and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro". Among other things, he conducted the opera "TEA" by Tan Dun (director: Wolf Widder), a production of "Magic Flute" (director: Alexandra Szemeredy/Magdolna Parditka) and the opera "Il Campiello" by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (director: Rosamund Gilmore ). A new production of Benjamin Britten's "The Turn of the Screw" (director: Florentine Klepper) is on the program for the 2022/23 winter semester. Kai Röhrig gives his students a comprehensive overview of everything from baroque music to works from the contemporary repertoire. Likewise, the great stage works of the genius loci Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are always on the program of his class. Many of its graduates are now successful in their jobs.  Kai Röhrig studied at the Cologne Music Academy and at the Mozarteum University in the class of Michael Gielen, and he also regularly attended summer courses with Rolf Liebermann. He is a prizewinner of the International Mozarteum Foundation, which awarded him the "Bernhard Paumgartner Medal". He worked as a musical assistant at the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals. As a protégé of Bernard Haitink, he was engaged with the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and the Concertgebouw Orkest in Amsterdam. For several years he worked as an assistant to Pierre Boulez with various orchestras in Salzburg, Vienna and Paris.  In addition to positions as Kapellmeister, Kai Röhrig worked for several years as music director of the Salzburg State Theater. In ten seasons he conducted more than four hundred performances here. He has also appeared as a guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Hanover State Opera, the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich and the Innsbruck Landestheater. As part of the festival for the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, he conducted a production of Hans Werner Henze's opera "Das Wundertheater". At the Salzburg Festival he conducted productions of The Magic Flute, The Entführung aus dem Seraglio and La Cenerentola as part of the YSP. In July 2022 he conducted the premiere of Fausto Tuscano's music theater "Francesco" as part of the Salzburg Festival and the Richard Strauss Days in Garmisch-Patenkirchen.  Concerts regularly lead Kai Röhrig to the podium of the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra. He gave guest performances with orchestras such as the Korean KBS Symphony Orchestra, the Slovenian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra and the New Westphalian Philharmonic. He made his debut in the Berlin Philharmonie conducting the German Symphony Orchestra. On his debut at the Tonhalle Zurich he conducted a world premiere by Boris Mersson and the 14th Symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich. Kai Röhrig has devoted himself intensively to contemporary music for many years. He has conducted numerous premieres, including works by composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Adriana Hölszky, Herbert Grassl, Fausto Tuscano and Hossam Mahmoud, as well as Austrian premieres by Hans Werner Henze, Manfred Trojahn, Steve Reich and Salvatore Sciarrino. He works regularly with renowned ensembles such as OENM, Ensemble NAMES, Musikfabrik NRW and Ensemble Chromoson.