Gernot Sahler | © Elsa Okazaki
Senate
Department Head
Teacher

Univ.-Prof.

Gernot Sahler

Univ.-Prof. for Musical Dramatic Representation (musical) / Head of Mozart:ForumDepartment Opera & Musical TheatreMozart:Forum

Gernot Sahler, born in Trier, studied piano and conducting at the Folkwang Hochschule für Musik, Tanz und Theater in Essen. From 1991 onwards he worked as répétiteur and Kapellmeister at the Aachen Theatre, the Essen Theatre Philharmonic and the Mainz State Theatre. From 1996 to 2003 he was 1st Kapellmeister and Deputy General Music Director at the Staatstheater Mainz and from 1996 onwards lecturer in conducting and leader of the Peter Cornelius Orchestra.

From 2003 to 2006 he was 1st Kapellmeister and Deputy General Music Director at the Freiburg Theatre. Invitation to the Venice Biennale for the music theatre production Les Nègres by Michaël Levinas. In 2008/09 he was guest conductor at the National Theatre Maribor (Slovenia).

After a professorship for orchestral conducting at the Hochschule in Cologne, he was appointed university professor for the musical direction of the Department of Music Theatre at the University Mozarteum Salzburg in 2012. He has been head of the Department of Opera and Music Theatre since 2017. Collaboration with the directors Hermann Keckeis, Eike Gramss, Karoline Gruber and Alexander von Pfeil; productions at the Mozarteum include: La bohème, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Rape of Lucretia, Carmen, Eugene Onegin, La finta giardiniera, Gianni Schicchi, Alcina, La finta semplice, Reigen, Les contes d'Hoffmann, Owen Wingrave, La clemenza di Tito, Faust and L'incoronazione di Poppea. Gernot Sahler has also been director of the newly founded Mozart Forum at the Mozarteum University Salzburg since 2021.