A warm welcome to Mario Venzago!

We are delighted to welcome conductor Mario Venzago and to accompany him on his further artistic journey! The Swiss conductor has decades of experience in conducting renowned international orchestras.

As chief conductor and general music director, he has led the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Basque National Orchestra San Sebastian, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Frankfurt (now Bremen), the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Musikkollegium Winterthur.

From 2010 to 2014 he was Principal Conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, from 2010 to 2019 Artist in Association with the Finnish Tapiola Sinfonietta and from 2000 to 2003 Artistic Director of the Baltimore Music Summer Fest.

For eleven years, between 2010 and 2021, Venzago was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Bern Symphony Orchestra, with whom he released numerous CD recordings and premiered a violin concerto he composed himself.

Composing is of great importance to Venzago and in recent years he has increasingly devoted himself to his own compositions: in addition to a violin concerto there is also a piano concerto and during the pandemic he wrote two operas: Hotel Windermer, based on a short story by Raymond Chandler (I’ll be waiting) and The Piano Tuner, based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Mason.

In 2017, Sony Classical released the sensational recording of Franz Schubert’s Finished Unfinished (completed by Venzago) with the Basel Chamber Orchestra. He also recorded all Bruckner symphonies (0-9) with five different orchestras for CPO in 2016.

The 24/25 concert season will bring him back to Bern, as well as to Indianapolis, Taipei, Singapore, Malmö and Hanover among other places.