Conductor until July 2021: Killian Farrell

Killian Farrell had been engaged as First Kapellmeister of Theater Bremen in September 2020, after working at the theatre since 2017 as Repetiteur and Assistant to the General Music Director. In the 2018/19 season in Bremen he conducted revivals of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and The Magic Flute, as well as performances of Fidelio, among others. In the 2019/20 season he conducted a new production of Wolfgang Rihm’s Jakob Lenz, and performances of Händel’s Alcina and Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. In the current season he leads new productions of Poulenc’s La voix humaine  and his own arrangement of The Magic Flute. Guest engagements have brought him to opera houses such as the Komische Oper Berlin (La Traviata) and Dutch National Opera/Musiekgebouw (Dennehy’s The Second Violinist), and orchestras including the Ulster Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic, and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. At the end of 2021 he will be engaged at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. There he conducted Tosca and Die Liebe zu drei Orangen for the first time in the 2021/22 season.

Killian Farrell comes from Dublin, Ireland, and began a comprehensive musical education at a young age. He was the Deputy Head Chorister of the Palestrina Choir in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral, and made his professional conducting debut at the age of 17 with a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion.

At the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama Farrell studied Piano, Organ and Conducting, while completing his studies in Musicology at Trinity College, Dublin, finishing with a first-class honours degree. He moved to London to further his studies as a Repetiteur at the National Opera Studio, where he was a Young Artist in the 2016–17 season. Further artistic impulses came from his time as a Britten-Pears Young Artist, and at the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. As a Conducting Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center in 2019, Farrell shared the podium with renowned conductors such as Andris Nelsons and Thomas Adés.

At the Theater Bremen he recorded a pandemic-appropriate version of J. S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with members of the Theater Ensemble and the Bremen Philharmonic in December 2020. A link to this recording can be found here: https://v.culturebase.org/a/d/v/e/n/adventskonzert_3_weihnachtsoratorium_fuer_sechs_saenge.2020.film.lang_de.mov.mp4

Because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Killian Farrell was working on a reduced schedule at Theater Bremen. Therefore he has had the availability to conduct the Orchestra and Choir of the University Bremen until the end of July 2021. The Orchestra and Choir were very pleased with this development, and wish him all the best for his future!