James Gaffigan - of Staten Island, NY - will begin his term as General Music Director of the Komiche Oper Berlin in 2023

On Sunday, January 9, 2022, musicians from the Staatskapelle Berlin played in the Pierre Boulez Saal under the direction of James Gaffigan, who will become General Music Director of the Komische Oper Berlin in 2023.

At the end of November 2021, the opera SLEEPLESS by Peter Eötvös was premiered at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden; Leoš Janáček's DIE SACHE MAKROPULOS, under the musical direction of Simon Rattle and directed by Claus Guth, is slotted to be the Berlin Staatsoper’s first premiere of 2022 in February. Accompanying these operas, music by both composers will also be heard in concert: Yulia Deyneka, the first violist of the Staatskapelle Berlin, is soloist for the world premiere of Peter Eötvös' »Respond« for viola and orchestra. The program also includes Leoš Janáček's »Idylle« for string orchestra and Maurice Ravel's »Ma mère l'oye«.

Yulia Deyneka, born in Russia in 1982, studied at the Moscow Conservatory and the Rostock University of Music and Theater and received her concert exam at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2005, she became first solo violist at the Staatskapelle Berlin. As a highly acclaimed soloist and full-blooded chamber musician, her heart also beats for non-mainstream repertoire. On composer David Robert Coleman's debut CD, she recorded character pieces that Coleman personally dedicated to her. She recorded the viola adaptation of Pierre Boulez’s »Messagesquisse« with the Boulez Ensemble conducted by Francois-Xavier Roth. Yulia Deyneka has been a permanent member of the Boulez Ensemble since it was founded and has taken part in world premieres by Aribert Reimann, Olga Neuwirth, Matthias Pintscher, and others. She is regularly represented at international chamber music festivals and has delighted her audience as a soloist in New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Paris Philharmonic, and other well-known international houses. She plays with chamber music partners such as Jörg Widmann, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Emmanuel Pahud, and in the string quartet of the Staatskapelle Berlin. She has enjoyed a long chamber music partnership with Daniel Barenboim, her involvement in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra being particularly noteworthy. There she is involved in the development of young talents from the Middle East. She also works as a mentor for young violists at the Orchestra Academy of the Staatskapelle Berlin. She has been teaching at the Barenboim-Said Academy since 2016, and as a professor since 2019.

James Gaffigan has been appointed General Music Director of the Komische Oper Berlin beginning in the 2023-24 season. He currently holds senior artistic positions at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, the Trondheim Symfoniorkester & Opera, the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra, and the Nederlands Radio Filharmonisch Orkest. Until 2021, he was chief conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, with which he gained recognition through successful tours and CD recordings. James Gaffigan is in demand with leading orchestras and opera houses. In the 2021-22 season he will make his debuts at the Paris and Valencia Operas and with the Philharmonia Orchestra, and he has been invited back to the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, and the Česká filharmonie Prague. Recent highlights include appearances with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Saxon Staatskapelle Dresden, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and major orchestras of the USA and Canada. James Gaffigan is a regular guest of the Metropolitan Opera and the Bavarian State Opera and has directed opera performances at the State Operas of Vienna and Hamburg, in Zurich and Chicago, among others. He won the Solti Conducting Competition in 2004 and subsequently worked as musical assistant with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra under music director Franz Welser-Möst. Raised in Staten Island, he attended LaGuardia High School of Music and Art before pursuing his conducting studies.