Wagner to Wolschina
Prof. Gregor Bühl conducts inaugural concert in the Weimarhalle
The Music university is organizing a symphony concert closely linked to Weimar and its musical history to mark the end of the winter semester. In his inaugural concert, which will feature romantic music, the new Weimar conducting professor Gregor Bühl will conduct the university orchestra in public for the first time on Thursday, January 29, 2026, at 7:30 p.m. in the Weimarhalle.
Tickets are available for €20, or €15 with a discount, at the Weimar Tourist Information Office and at the box office.
With Iuliana Ioana (soprano), Tiankai Yu (piano), Christoph Haaß (double bass), and Luge Zhang (marimba), there will be four soloists on stage, who will be completing an important part of their final exams with their performances. After the famous pre-player to the first act of Richard Wagner's opera “Lohengrin,” Iuliana Ioana will sing Elsa's dream “Einsam in trüben Tagen” (Lonely in gloomy days) from the same musical theater work, which premiered in Weimar in 1850.
A year earlier, Franz Liszt had granted his fellow composer Richard Wagner refuge from political persecution in Weimar. Liszt, the namesake of the Weimar Music university, is represented in the program with his powerful first piano concerto in E-flat major.
Another concerto for two soloists then transports the audience into the modern era: Reinhard Wolschina's double concerto for double bass, marimbaphon, 18 wind instruments, and two harps will be performed in Weimar for the first time. Wolschina (1952–2025) worked as a pianist, music theorist, and long-time professor of composition at the FRANZ LISZT University of Music.
To conclude the symphonic evening, the concert will return to the Romantic era with Richard Strauss's “Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks,” Op. 28.
Strauss was engaged as second conductor of the Weimar Court Orchestra from 1889 to 1894. His tone poem, which premiered in Cologne the following year, in 1895, captivates with its irony, energy, and orchestral sophistication. “I am very pleased to be able to present a program consisting entirely of works ‘made in Weimar,’” says conductor Gregor Bühl.
Gregor Bühl is an internationally sought-after opera and concert conductor. He gained international attention with his new production of “Der Ring des Nibelungen” cycle at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. In recent seasons, he has appeared regularly at the Theater Basel, the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the Hamburg State Opera, and the Stuttgart State Opera with various opera conductors. He also collaborates regularly with the State Theater in Hanover, where he has conducted several new productions in recent seasons.
In 2021, he conducted the highly acclaimed world premiere of Steward Copeland's opera “Electric Saint” at the German National Theater in Weimar. Bühl made his North American debut at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto with ‘Fidelio’ and his South American debut at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires with a production of Lehár's “The Merry Widow.” Guest conducting engagements have taken him to the Opéra National de Montpellier, the Semperoper Dresden, where he conducted the rarely performed Strauss adaptation of Mozart's “Idomeneo,” as well as the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Leipzig Opera.
On concert tours through Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Israel, Gregor Bühl has worked with the radio symphony orchestras of Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, Saarbrücken, Hilversum, and Hanover, as well as with the Finnish and Danish radio orchestras. Further conducting engagements have taken him to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, and the Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic Orchestra.
He had his first conducting engagement as assistant to Gerd Albrecht at the Hamburg State Opera before moving to the State Theater in Hanover as principal conductor in 1995. During the six years he remained associated with this theater, he conducted a wide-ranging repertoire that included not only the great German and Italian operas, but also important contemporary works.
After teaching at the Academy of Music in Oslo, Gregor Bühl succeeded Prof. Nicolás Pasquet as professor of orchestral conducting at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar in the summer semester of 2025.
[11 December 2025]