Events9 results
About
Between 2009 and 2014 he was the musical director in Augsburg, since 2013 principal conductor of the Granz Opera. In the autumn of 2017 he took up his position as general musical director to the city of Bonn.
His work in the fields of musical theatre and concerts is highly praised by regional and national critics. In addition he has developed a reputation for his many innovative projects that aim to get young people into music, and for implementing many ideas to foster intercultural dialogue.
Besides his intensive work at his home bases he is a nationally and internationally sought-after guest conductor: in the autumn of 2012 he conducted the new production of Mozart’s ‘Le nozze di Figaro’ at the Volksoper in Vienna, having enjoyed his debut there with ‘Die Fledermaus’ in 2010. In 2013 he made his Asian debut in Taipei with the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, conducting ‘Swan Lake’. Engagements at the Frankfurt Opera, the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen and the Auckland Philharmonic in New Zealand followed. He was invited to perform with his Grazer Philharmonisches Orchester at concerts at Taiwan’s most significant cultural festival and at the Musikverein in Vienna.
After initial engagements in Trier and Münster, Dirk Kaftan was the Kapellmeister and deputy musical director in Bielefeld and Dortmund. Between 2006 and 2009 he was the Kapellmeister and deputy principal conductor at the Graz Opera, where he conducted, among other works, the new productions of ‘Tannhäuser’, ‘Alcina’, ‘Die Liebe zu den drei Orangen’ and ‘Wozzeck’. As a concert conductor he has conducted orchestras such as the Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Staatsphilharmonie in Nuremberg, the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria and the Gürzenich-Orchester in Cologne. As an operatic conductor he has had guest engagements in Montpellier, Nuremberg, Mannheim, at the Semperoper Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Bonn Opera. The magazine Opernwelt has nominated him several times in the category ‘Conductor of the Year’.