Joseph Wolfe - Conductor
In season ‘06/7 the highly promising British conductor, Joseph Wolfe, appeared five times with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Paul Driver / Sunday Times, 1st April ’07: “He had his scores in front of him, but, in Schubert’s Symphony No 8 and Sibelius’s No 1, rarely looked at them. His reading of the first had a powerful, tragic tautness; the second was a more raw, less disciplined affair.”), was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Borusan Chamber Orchestra in Istanbul and made his international opera debut conducting Malmö Opera’s production of Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie (Knud Ketting / Opera, February ‘07: “…….The British conductor Joseph Wolfe made a conspicuously good operatic debut, keeping everything well together while stressing stronger moments and discreetly underplaying the more sentimental ones.”). He made debuts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra during May and June ’07 as well as making first appearances in Scandinavia and in Germany during the season. Debuts in season ‘05/6 saw him re-invited to every orchestra he appeared with, the English Chamber Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as well as those he worked with outside the UK. Most recently his work in Turkey with the Borusan Philharmonic Orchestra for the opening concert of the Istanbul Summer Festival in 2006 resulted in re-invitations for the next three years. Joseph Wolfe has also already made radio recordings for Bavarian Radio with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphoniker. In season ‘07/8 he makes debuts in The Netherlands, Belgium and Eire and in ‘08/9 he will appear with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Utrecht and at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.
Joseph Wolfe began studying conducting whilst attending the Hochschule Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden where he also founded and directed the Dresden Kammersinfoniker. During this period he was also Guest Conductor of the Brandenburg Philharmonic. On his return to the UK he continued his studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he formed the Nimrod Ensemble of London. He later studied with Konrad von Abel (assistant to Sergiu Celibidache) and with Professor Jorma Panula (Helsinki) during courses with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. He was invited to the Tanglewood Music Centre for the summer of 2004 where he shared a concert with Kurt Masur and was assistant conductor in Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He was a prizewinner at the 7th Leeds Conducting Competition. After his debut with the Bavarian State Youth Orchestra in 2003 Joseph Wolfe was immediately re-invited for concerts with this orchestra in 2004 at Munich’s Gasteig and in Nuremberg. The concerts were broadcast by Bavarian Radio, and he returned to them again in the summer of 2006. In London he held the Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s Conducting Fellowship during season ‘05/6 where his responsibilities included conducting the Guildhall Sinfonia, chamber music coaching and helping with conducting classes.
“The ‘Unfinished’ Symphony has become, unfortunately, aural wallpaper, so popular, and so frequently is it heard. It gives special delight, therefore, to report pleasure (hardly the appropriate word on hearing this apex of Schubertian expression) from Joseph Wolfe’s subtle and absorbing interpretation that was here beautifully played. ………. What was remarkable about the performance [of Sibelius’ 1st Symphony] under Wolfe was how the indebtedness to Tchaikovsky was played down in favour of a true Sibelian sonority even in the often-mushy slow movement. Wolfe accentuated the varying woodwind themes above the string mêlée, which produced a true freshness to the fabric of the work. Each movement had an authentic momentum that gave the whole piece a semblance of formal unity rare in most interpretations.” Edward Clark / classicalsource.com, April ‘07
September 2007