Principal Conductor Designate

ASHER FISCH

Asher Fisch will take up the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra for a period of three years, commencing with the Orchestra’s 2014 season.

Israeli-born conductor Asher Fisch appears with many of the world’s most renowned opera companies and symphony orchestras. With a vast repertoire that spans three centuries stylistically from Gluck to Adams, Mr Fisch is particularly known and appreciated for his interpretive command of core German Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire, from Beethoven through Berg, including virtually the entire canon of Wagner and Strauss. 

Asher Fisch is currently the Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Opera and formerly served as Music Director of the New Israeli Opera (1998-2008) and the Wiener Volksoper (1995-2000).   

Mr Fisch will conduct Turandot at Seattle Opera in summer 2012, and he has spent much of the current 2011-2012 season in two of Germany’s principal opera houses: the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he led a new production of Don Carlo and revival performances of Tosca, Turandot and Die Zauberflöte; and at the Dresden Semperoper (Sächsische Staatsoper) leading Rigoletto performances. Outside Germany, Mr Fisch leads the Paris Opera production of Léhar’s Die Lustige Witwe, returns to the Wiener Staatsoper for Cavalleria Rusticana / I Pagliacci, and is conducting the Italian premiere of Alexander Zemlinsky’s König Kandaulus in Teatro Massimo Palermo. In the world of symphony orchestras, Mr Fisch conducts two weeks of concerts with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, and also conducted programs with the Dresdner Staatskapelle, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and National Orchestral Institute. In summer 2012, he makes a debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood Festival in an all-Wagner program for the festival’s 75th anniversary commemoration.  

Next season 2012-13, Mr Fisch returns to New York’s Metropolitan Opera for Parsifal, to Seattle for Fidelio, and has a variety of titles in German opera houses (Hamburg and Munich) including Die Zauberflöte, Der fliegende Holländer, Manon Lescaut, and symphonic programs with the Atlanta Symphony and Kansas City Symphony before returning to Seattle in summer 2013 for its quadrennial complete Wagner Der Ring des Nibelungen. 

Early on mentored and championed by Daniel Barenboim, Mr Fisch began his conducting career as Maestro Barenboim’s assistant and kappellmeister at the Berlin Staatsoper during the 1990s. Emerging as a significant conductor in his own right, Mr Fisch has since developed enduring relationships internationally, not only among the world opera houses by also with symphony orchestras. Among the North American symphony orchestras, Mr Fisch has conducted those of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, Atlanta, Houston, Saint Louis, Toronto, Montreal, Minnesota and the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. In Europe, he appears regularly at the Munich Philharmonic and has also conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Dresdner Staatskapelle, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orchestre National de France, among others. In Australia, he has become a repeated guest to the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (Perth) and also the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra since leading and recording a Wagner Ring Cycle with them for the Adelaide Festival in 2004.

A regular guest at leading European opera houses, Mr Fisch has conducted repertoire ranging from Mozart to Berg at the Berlin Staatsoper (Unter den Linden), Vienna Staatsoper, Milan’s La Scala, Paris Opera, Dresden Semperoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Hamburg Staatsoper, Leipzig Opera and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, where he conducted the concert gala celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the Royal Opera House, which was recorded and released by EMI Records. 

After making his United States debut with the Los Angeles Opera in 1995, Mr Fisch has since conducted at the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera and Houston Grand Opera. In summer of 2003 he inaugurated the new Seattle Opera House to great acclaim with a new production of Parsifal, and returned to Seattle in July 2004 for Lohengrin. That same year he led the new production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle for the South Australian Opera, which won ten awards at Australia’s Helpmann Awards, including best opera and best music direction.

Mr Fisch is also an accomplished pianist, with a first solo disc of piano transcriptions on the Melba label scheduled for release in May 2012. He often play-conducts, and also participates in chamber music and vocal recitals. 

For more information about Asher Fisch, click here to visit his website.

asher Fisch's 2013 WASO Performances

Asher Fisch Conducts
Morning Symphony
5 September
Perth Concert Hall

Asher Fisch Conducts
6 & 7 September
Perth Concert Hall

Alban Gerhardt in Recital
Asher Fisch, piano
9 September
Government House Ballroom

Ingrid Fliter Plays Chopin
13 & 14 September
Perth Concert Hall
 

WASO’s Principal Conductor Designate is partnered by Wesfarmers Arts.