New Choral Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Dani Juris will be the new choir director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, beginning in the 2023/24 season.
Beginning in the 2023/24 season, Dani Juris will take over the direction of the Staatsopernchor at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. He succeeds Martin Wright, who has held the position since the start of the 2013/14 season.
“In Dani Juris we have found an extremely accomplished, prudent choir director of the new generation, who at the same time has extensive operatic experience. His human, approachable nature was also an important building block in this choice. We look forward to working with him and to knowing him as a colleague among us in the future! I would like to sincerely thank his predecessor Martin Wright: for almost a decade he shaped the Staatsopernchor in a wonderful way and created numerous unforgettable opera performances and concerts.”
“The Staatsopernchor is a mainstay of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and we have already been connected by 30 musically extremely enjoyable years together, both on the opera stage and on the concert podium. I would like to thank choir director Martin Wright very much for the good cooperation in recent years. I warmly welcome Dani Juris and wish him all the best. I look forward to many more wonderful musical moments with our State Opera Choir.”
“Even during my preliminary conducting I was able to experience how much professional ability and musical intelligence there is in this incredibly experienced choir. It was immediately noticeable how much everyone enjoys their work in the team and I am already looking forward to being inspired by and with these people every day. Seven years as director of my wonderful opera choir in Mannheim have only confirmed to me that being a choir director is my dream job, because it combines my great passions: choral singing, opera music, rehearsals, and working together with people of different nationalities and backgrounds and older. It is a great honor and pleasure for me to be able to practice this profession at such a top-class house as the Staatsoper Unter den Linden from next year.”
Dani Juris was born in Moscow in 1984 and grew up in Finland, where he lived and worked until 2016. As the son of pianists with family roots in Germany, Ecuador, Great Britain, Iraq, Austria, and Syria, he began his musical career in early childhood with the piano and later learned to play the harp. His love of opera blossomed in 1991 at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, where he experienced AIDA as a 7-year-old. After more than 10 years as a member of the Helsinki Cathedral Boys Choir “Cantores Minores,” he decided to study choral music. He studied choral conducting at the Helsinki University of Applied Sciences, at the Graz University of Art and at the Sibelius Academy, where he completed his master's degree in 2011.
In 2016, Dani Juris was engaged as choir director at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and moved to Germany. There, he successfully conducted the opera choir with its 56 singers for seven seasons and rehearsed for a total of over 60 opera productions. He also performed a great deal of concert literature with the opera choir during his tenure. The repertoire in Mannheim also included symphonic works such as War Requiem by Benjamin Britten, Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms and the 2nd and 3rd symphonies by Gustav Mahler, which were performed together with the Musikalische Akademie der Nationaltheater-Orchester Mannheim. An integral part of the activity was also directing the extra choir, which took part in large productions such as TURANDOT or LOHENGRIN.
As a choirmaster, choral singer and répétiteur, Dani Juris has worked with numerous choirs both in his native Helsinki and abroad. These include the Philharmonic Choirs in Helsinki and Tampere, the Helsinki Chamber Choir (successor to the Finnish Radio Chamber Choir), the student choir SOL and the chamber choir “Kaamos,” which he founded in 2007 and is now one of the most renowned chamber choirs in Finland, receiving the Grand Prix (the highest award) at the Tampere Vocal Music Festival in 2011. In the same year, Juris was awarded the festival's conductor's prize. In 2009, he received 1st prize at the 5th International Competition for Young Conductors in Ljubljana, organized by the Europa Cantat Choir Association. As a guest rider, Dani Juris has worked with the Slovenian Radio Chamber Choir, the Torino Vocalensemble mixed choir, and the Opera Choir of the Opéra Nacional de Lyon. As a lecturer in choral conducting, Dani Juris has gained experience at the Tampere University of Applied Sciences, the Sibelius Academy and the Federal Academy in Wolfenbüttel, among others.