RAOUL GRÜNEIS

After several successful concerts with the Pomeranian Philharmonic in Bydgoszcz,
Raoul Grüneis will assume the position of Chief Conductor there at the beginning of 2026.

In May 2026, after a long absence, he will also return to Venezuela — again with El Sistema and again with Wagner, this time with a production of Parsifal. Years earlier, he had already performed Wagner there with Deborah Voigt, which prompted Gustavo Dudamel to remark, 
“Your Wagner is something truly special!”
 

With the Anime Symphony project, he will present the music of anime films in orchestral versions in a series of concerts in Germany and abroad, including the Berlin Philharmonie, aiming to introduce a younger audience to the symphonic concert format.
 

After engagements at various German theaters, including Mannheim and Darmstadt,
Raoul Grüneis served as General Music Director of the opera houses in Ankara and Istanbul.
Highlights there included productions with Angela Gheorghiu, Kristine Opolais, Ferial Türkoglu, and Murat Karahan, among many others.
He also worked for more than ten years as Principal Guest Conductor of the Presidential Orchestra in Ankara and closely collaborated with the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and nearly all other orchestras in Turkey, as well as at the Aspendos Festival, making him a respected figure in the country’s rich musical life.
 

Born in Würzburg, Grüneis studied piano, composition, and conducting at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin). His participation in the song interpretation classes of Aribert Reimann and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau proved especially formative, and to this day, accompanying song recitals remains an important complement to his conducting career.
 

Equally influential were his studies with Sergiu Celibidache.
In the same artistic spirit, he also studied with Witold Szalonek, a pupil of Nadia Boulanger.
As a result, the music of the French modernists has become a prominent focus in Grüneis’s repertoire.
 

Another artistic cornerstone is the work of Richard Wagner.
He became familiar with the particular stylistic demands of Wagner’s operas through his work as accompanist for the Bayreuth master classes of Waltraud Meier, Anna Reynolds, and Jean Cox.
During his tenure at the Nationaltheater Mannheim under Jun Märkl, he also served as assistant to Donald Runnicles and Giuseppe Sinopoli at the Bayreuth Festival.
Nevertheless, his repertoire spans from the Baroque period (with a solid knowledge of historical performance practice) to contemporary compositions.
 

As a guest conductor, Raoul Grüneis has worked with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the Berliner Symphoniker, the Essen Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the German Chamber Orchestra Berlin, the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano, the Philharmonics of Brno, Jena, and Gdańsk, as well as the Radio Orchestras of Sofia and Prague, and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Guangzhou and Seoul, among many others.
 

Following several recordings, he will continue his collaboration with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie.
A highly successful South American tour in 2019 with Mischa Maisky and the RTV Symphony Orchestra Slovenia led to an immediate re-invitation by the orchestra.
 

Guest appearances have also taken him to the opera houses of Graz and Dublin, the National Theatre Prague (Národní divadlo), the State Opera Hanover, the Tyrolean State Theatre Innsbruck, the National Theatre Weimar, and the Stuttgart State Opera, where he made his debut with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande — most recently also to the Aalto Theatre Essen.
 

At every stage of his career, he has shown great enthusiasm for educational and outreach projects, especially since his connection with Venezuela’s El Sistema and its most prominent representative, Gustavo Dudamel.
He has led the orchestral course of the masterclasses at Haus Marteau for several years in this spirit and collaborated with the Mozarteum Brasileiro as well as various young chamber ensembles in Istanbul.
 

His most recent project was a working phase with the Galeel Chamber Orchestra, a Palestinian–Israeli youth initiative.