Duisburg Philharmonic Appoints New General Music Director

Stefan Blunier will step into the role, beginning with the 2026/27 season

The Duisburg Philharmonic has announced that the conductor Stefan Blunier will serve as its next General Music Director, having been chosen unanimously by the selection committee.

Blunier will begin his tenure at the opening of the 2026/27 season, but will also make a number of appearances with the orchestra in the 2025/26 season — including in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, at the New Year's concert with Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, and in subscription concerts with works such as Bruckner's Symphony No. 7.

He has previously served as General Music Director at the Staatstheater Darmstadt (2001-08), and was also General Music Director of the Beethovenstadt Bonn — a position which involved being Chief Conductor of the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn and the Bonn Opera. At the beginning of the 2010/2011 season, Stefan Blunier was appointed Premier Chef Invité of the Orchestre National de Belgique in Brussels.

Blunier has appeared with more than 100 symphony orchestras in Europe and Asia, and has conducted at the opera houses in London, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, and Berlin (KOB and DOB) as well as in Montpellier, Stockholm, Oslo, Zurich, Geneva, and Bern.

The winner of the Besançon and Malko conducting competitions, he studied piano, horn, composition, and conducting in his hometown of Bern and at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.

"I am very pleased that we were able to fill this position, which is so important for Duisburg, so successfully and with such high caliber after a unanimous vote from the selection committee," said Nils Szczepanski, artistic director of the Duisburg Philharmonic.

"Blunier was the candidate for all of us, we were in agreement in the selection committee – he has a wide repertoire, is artistically versatile, and has learned his craft from the ground up. He has followed a consistent path and understands the orchestra in its entirety – he possesses a unique quality that promises something special for the future of Duisburg and its Philharmonic."