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Otto Tausk

conductor

About this Artist

"Tausk emphasized precision and clarity with the orchestra without sacrificingemotion and narrative power." NRC Amsterdam, December 2021

"I believe that the energy that comes from the stage to the audience is a sharedenergy. All musicians bring something to that energy, and also they bring something to me."

This philosophy characterises Otto Tausk’s work as the Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Advisor of the VSO School of Music. He is now in his fourth season at VSO, where he has recently extended until 2026. He is furthermore Chief Conductor of Phion Orkest van Gelderland &Overijssel.

He appears as a guest with such orchestras as Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Philharmonie Südwestfalen, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, the orchestras of Perth, Tasmania, Auckland, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with whom he made his BBC Proms debut in August 2018. He is a hugely respected musical personality in his native Holland, working with all its major orchestras and composers.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Tausk led an innovative reimagined season in Vancouver, showcasing the orchestra in a curated series of digital performances. His current season with the orchestra will feature a concert performance of Prokofiev’s complete Romeo and Juliet, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, works by five indigenous composers alongside many contemporary Canadian works including six new commissions. 2021/2022 also marks the beginning of a multi-season project combining the symphonies of Schumann with a new commissioned work to accompany each.

In the opera pit, this season he conducts the world premiere of Michel van der Aa’s new opera ‘Upload’, with appearances worldwide at the Dutch National Opera, Oper Köln, Bregenzer Festspiele and Park Avenue Armoryin New York. In his previous role as Musikdirektor of the Theater and Tonhalle Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, Tausk conducted the world premiere of ‘Annas Maske’, by Swiss composer David Philip Hefti, the Swiss premiere of George Benjamin’s ‘Written on Skin’, Korngold’s ‘Die Tote Stadt’ plus ‘Don Giovanni’, ‘Die Entführung aus dem Serail’, ‘Eugene Onegin’, ‘West Side Story’, ‘Lohengrin’ and ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’. He will appear with players from Phion Orkest at Holland’s Nationale Resiopera, for productions planned in 2023 and 2024.

Tausk has recorded with the Concertgebouworkest, Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, BBC Scottish SymphonyOrchestra and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra amongst others. For the cpo label in 2011 HansPfitzner’s enchanting Orchesterlieder garnered international praise, not least the Classica France’s ‘Choc dumois’. His Prokofiev disc with Rosanne Philippens also received BBC Music Magazine Concerto Disc of the Month (2018).

Born in Utrecht, Otto Tausk initially studied violin and then conducting with Jonas Aleksa. Between 2004 and 2006, Tausk was assistant conductor to Valery Gergiev with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, a period of study that had a profound impact on him. In 2011 Tausk was presented with the prestigious ‘De Olifant’ prizerecognising his contribution to the Arts in the Netherlands.