Dominik Beykirch

Biography

The German conductor Dominik Beykirch has been responsible for shaping the artistic profile of the Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT) and the Staatskapelle Weimar since the 2015/16 season, most recently in the position of Music Director. Throughout this period, he has consistently upheld the highest standards of excellence. From the 2025/26 season onwards, however, he intends to pursue new opportunities, performing as a freelance conductor at various opera houses and concert halls.
Dominik Beykirch's highlights for the 2025/26 season include his debut in the orchestra pit of the Semperoper Dresden with Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, as well as new productions of Die tote Stadt by Erich Wolfgang Korngold at the German National Theatre Weimar (director: Dorian Dreher) and Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus at the Staatstheater Schwerin (director: Stephanie Schimmer). In the concert field, he is particularly looking forward to working with percussionist Vivi Vassileva (Recycling Concerto with the Mecklenburg State Orchestra) and with pianist Alexander Krichel in a concert with the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt. He is also looking forward to performing exciting programmes featuring works by Elfrida Andrée, Cécile Chaminade, Florence Price and Alice Mary Smith. He will be making his first guest appearances with the Augsburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, among others.
Dominik Beykirch continues to make a name for himself internationally through his work as an opera conductor. At the Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT), his initiative led to the first performance in 170 years of the opera Samson by Swiss composer Joachim Raff (director: Calixto Bieito) in October 2022. During the 2019/2020 season, Beykirch enjoyed great success with Paul Dessau's opera Lanzelot, which had not been performed for 40 years. The production, directed by Peter Konwitschny, was named ‘Rediscovery of the Year’ by the trade journal Opernwelt, which also nominated Beykirch as ‘Conductor of the Year’. In January 2023, the CD label audite released a recording of the complete opera. This recording received significant press attention and was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize and the 'CD of the Year' prize by Opernwelt, as well as having been nominated for the International Opera Awards. New productions such as Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos in Martin G. Berger's award-winning production (FAUST Prize 2020), Salome (director: Friederike Blum), Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (directors: Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito), Der fliegende Holländer (directed by Barbora Horáková), Aida and La traviata (directed by Andrea Moses) and L'italiana in Algeri (directed by Tobias Kratzer) were all also very well received by audiences and the trade press. In recognition of their conceptual work in the opera department of the Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT), Dominik Beykirch, Michael Höppner (senior dramaturg) and Andrea Moses (opera director) were awarded the 2024 German Theatre Publishers' Award. Thanks to the precision of Beykirch’s craftsmanship, his sensitivity to the needs of singers and to his musical enthusiasm, he has also created exceptional theatrical events at other opera houses, such as the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the Leipzig Opera, the Kassel State Theatre and the Chemnitz Theatre.
When it comes to concerts, Dominik Beykirch has long been a highly sought-after guest conductor. He has collaborated with numerous renowned orchestras, including the HR, MDR, SWR and WDR symphony orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Duisburg Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonie Zuidnederland, the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen, and the Rheinische Philharmonie State Orchestra. He has also performed with soloists such as Nemanja Radulovic, Cameron Carpenter, Jens Peter Maintz, Jan Vogler, Danae Dörken, Michael Barenboim, Harriet Krijgh and Claudio Bohórquez.

Dominik Beykirch enjoys an intensive collaborative relationship with the pianist Frank Dupree. Together, they have introduced a wide audience to Nikolai Kapustin's piano concertos. Their second joint recording, featuring Kapustin's second and sixth piano concertos with the SWR Symphony Orchestra and SWR Big Band, was released in November 2024. Dominik Beykirch was nominated in the category Conductor of the Year at the OPUS Klassik awards for his multi-award-winning recording of Kapustin's Fifth Piano Concerto (International Classical Music Award, Diapason d'Or), released in February 2023. In 2020, the Berlin Classics label released the album Clarinet Concertos, featuring clarinettist Sebastian Manz performing Carl Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken under Beykirch's direction. Beykirch also recorded Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (narrator: Malte Arkona) with the Dresden Philharmonic for Berlin Classics.
Dominik Beykirch completed his studies at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar, studying conducting under Prof. Nicolás Pasquet, Prof. Gunter Kahlert and Martin Hoff. He gained valuable artistic inspiration from renowned conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Ton Koopman, among others, and as a scholarship holder in the Conductors' Forum of the German Music Council. He now shares his experience in master classes and by teaching at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. During the winter semester of 2024/25, he also taught the main Orchestral Conducting class at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar.