# Marko Letonja, Conductor

> Marko Letonja, Conductor – 2 recordings on Ondine. Since 2012, the Slovene Marko Letonja has been Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de…

Source: https://ondine.eyelabel.com/artists/letonja-marko

- **Role:** Conductor
- **Photo:** © Tanja Niemenn

## Biography

Since 2012, the Slovene Marko Letonja has been Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre national, as well as Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. He studied piano and conducting with Professor Anton Nanut at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, and was a student of Professor Otmar Suitner at the Vienna Academy of Music, from which he graduated in 1989.

From 1991 to 2003, he was Musical Director of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, also conducting orchestras including the Wiener Symphoniker, Münchner and Bremen Philharmoniker, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica "Giuseppe Verdi" Milan and the opera orchestras of Cagliari and Stockholm.

From 2003 to 2006, he was Music Director and Chief Conductor of both the Symphony Orchestra and the Opera in Basel, where he conducted many new productions and also made multiple recordings. Elswhere he has led Pique Dame and Les Contes d'Hoffmann at the Vienna State Opera, Roméo et Juliette at the Teatro dell'Opera of Rome, Nabucco at Semperoper Dresden, Il dissoluto assolto/Sancta Susanna, The Makropoulos Case and Les Contes d'Hoffmann at La Scala Milan, Madama Butterfly at the Staatsoper Berlin and Die Walküre, Götterdämmerung, Der Rosenkavalier, Der Ferne Klang, House of the Dead and Flying Dutchman at Opéra du Rhin; Pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana and Flying Dutchman at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, Carmen in concert with the Munich Rundfunkorchester, La Traviata at Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung at the Teatro Sao Carlos in Lisbon.

Further opera projects include Pique Dame at the L'Opéra du Rhin, Boris Godunov at Vienna State Opera, and Medea at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Further concerts are scheduled with the Bremen and Essen Philharmonic Orchestras, the Rundfunksinfonieorchester Berlin, and the Mozarteum Salzburg.

## Discography on Ondine (2)

- [Kaija Saariaho: 70 Years · (Digital album)](https://ondine.eyelabel.com/catalogue/ode-1407-2.md): Various (ODE 1407-2, 2023)
- [Kaija Saariaho: Quatre instants (2002) · Terra memoria for String Orchestra · Émilie Suite](https://ondine.eyelabel.com/catalogue/ode-1255-2.md): Karen Vourc'h, soprano · Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg · Marko Letonja, conductor (ODE 1255-2, 2015)