Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano

Yoel Gamzou is an Israeli-American conductor and composer who expands the boundaries of traditional music performance with passionate intensity and a unique artistic vision. His deeply personal interpretations, tireless interest in new music and uncompromising commitment to communicating with new audiences make him one of the most remarkable representatives of a new generation of conductors.

© photo Christian Debus

As a highly sought-after symphonic conductor, Yoel Gamzou has worked with renowned orchestras such as the Wiener Symphoniker, the Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Hamburger Symphoniker, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Essener Philharmoniker, the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the Frankfurt Museumsorchester, the Mozarteumsorchester Salzburg, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and many others.
The 2025/26 season includes several prestigious engagements. He will return to the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, among others.
Highlights of Gamzou’s past season included conducting Salome at the Vienna State Opera and the Baltic Opera Festival, as well as a tour with the Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic, culminating in a concert at the Salzburg Festival. He also conducted a radical, polarising new production of Der Freischütz at the Hamburg State Opera and made his debut with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra – both as last-minute jump-ins that led to immediate re-invitations.
Gamzou has also established himself in the world of opera. In 2022, he conducted a performance of Die Tote Stadt at the Vienna State Opera. This led to frequent appearances In Vienna, as well a number of other major European Opera Houses, such as the Hamburg State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera, where he works regularly as guest-conductor.
This coming season’s opera productions include Fidelio at the Bavarian State Opera and the Munich Opera Festival, Der Freischütz at the Hamburg State Opera, as well as his debut at the Opera National de Montpellier with Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci.

From 2017 to 2022, Yoel Gamzou was General Music Director at Theater Bremen (Bremen Opera), where his productions included Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, Die Tote Stadt, Der Rosenkavalier, Jenůfa, Pique Dame and many others – including a world premiere of a new opera by Elmar Lampson, Wellen.
Gamzou has been an avid partner for unconventional projects. From 2017 onwards, he was part of the creative team around Marina Abramović that developed the critically acclaimed project 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, which went on to premiere at the Bavarian State Opera and tour all over Europe, among others to the English National Opera, the Opéra de Paris, the Greek National Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Teatro di San Carlo and Royal Theatre Carre Amsterdam.
Yoel Gamzou is also a prolific composer. His most recent work The Portrait – Archaeology of an Obsession for Speaker and Orchestra, is based on poems by the British painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Portrait was premiered in January 2025 at the Konzerthaus Berlin with Sir Tim Rice as speaker and was an immediate success. It was subsequently published by Schott Music.
Also published by Schott Music is his completion of Mahler’s unfinished Tenth Symphony. Titled Realisation and Elaboration of the Unfinished Drafts, the work followed a highly personal and controversial approach. It was a sensation at the time of its premiere and catapulted him into the international spotlight when it was first performed in 2010 – at that point Gamzou was only 23. It was subsequently released as a CD-recording by the German label WERGO and won the ECHO Klassik Award for 2017. It has since been performed all over the world, by Gamzou and many other conductors.

Alongside his work in the mainstream symphonic and opera world, Gamzou has always nourished relationships with youth orchestras and has founded several ensembles of his own. In 2006, he founded the International Mahler Orchestra (IMO) – of which he was the artistic director for ten years – with musicians from over 25 countries, exploring a non-hierarchical approach to orchestral work. In 2023, he founded a new group, “oneMusic Orchestra”, dedicated to the commissioning of “new music one actually wants to hear”. The project is committed to a 50/50 approach between old and new music in each one of its programmes and is dedicated to finding composers from different musical realms, otherwise not represented in the classical concert halls.

Yoel Gamzou has been honoured with theECHO Klassik Award in 2017, the Princess Margriet Award of the European Culture Foundation in 2013, and the Berenberg Culture Prize in 2012. In 2007, at the age of 19, he won the special prize of the International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, Bamberg.

Yoel Gamzou grew up in New York, London, and Tel Aviv. He was the last student of Carlo Maria Giulini, who was his main mentor.

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