Joana Mallwitz, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director Designate of Berlin’s Konzerthausorchester, has signed a contract with DG. The agreement will see her record with her new orchestra (whose artistic leader she becomes at the start of the 2023-24 season).

The first recording will be of Kurt Weill’s two symphonies coupled with his Die sieben Todsünden (‘The Seven Deadly Sins’), with vocalist Katharine Mehrling. Then she will conduct a new recording of Haydn’s Die Schöpfung ('The Creation'). Of the latter work she said, ‘The fascination exerted by Haydn’s Die Schöpfung for centuries needs no explanation. And yet that’s precisely what attracts me to this work. It’s by re-examining these musical landmarks time and again, and always performing them as if it were for the first time that we rediscover ourselves as musicians. I can think of no better partners for this than the Berlin Konzerthausorchester players and Deutsche Grammophon. I’m full of anticipation for our time together.’

‘Having known Joana Mallwitz for a long time, I am thrilled to announce her addition to our family of artists,' commented Dr Clemens Trautmann, DG’s President. ‘We now have a wonderful opportunity to work closely with her and our esteemed partners at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Joana has a rare ability to inspire and engage with her audiences, thanks to her boundless imagination, precise musicianship and consummate artistic integrity. We welcome her very warmly to Deutsche Grammophon and look forward to sharing her insightful artistry with music-lovers worldwide through a wide-ranging array of audio and video productions.’

Mallwitz’s name first appeared in Gramophone in September 2019, when Richard Bratby reviewed an Oehms recording from Frankfurt Opera of Franz Lehár's Die lustige Witwe ('The Merry Widow'), singling out Mallwitz's 'bright and buoyant conducting'. He continued: 'She takes care of details without overindulging them, whether Lehár’s swirling woodwind countermelodies or the quiet string slides and little splashes of harp that accompany the Vilja-Lied.' In April 2021 Peter Quantrill praised her streamed performance – with Berlin's Konzerthausorchester – of Schubert’s Ninth Symphony. ‘A Great C major worthy of the nickname,’ he wrote. ‘A buoyant sense of purpose is established from the outset, so is a pulse that admits smiling inflections of light and shade. The main Allegro sweeps in on a wave of euphoria.’ Then, in June 2021, Mark Pullinger praised a DVD performance, filmed at the Salzburg Festival the previous year, of Così fan tutte: ‘Mallwitz really makes Mozart’s score zing, keeping the Vienna Philharmonic light on their toes. I’ve been super-impressed with her conducting in a number of lockdown streams during the past year.’ The recording was named Gramophone’s DVD of the month and Mallwitz was singled out as 'One to Watch'.

Prior to her appointment in Berlin, Mallwitz was Music Director at Staatstheater Nürnberg, a role she held for five years. She studied piano and conducting at the Hanover University of Music and Performing Arts. In 2006, she joined the Theater Heidelberg and soon made her professional debut, stepping in last minute to conduct a performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

Joana Mallwitz became the youngest General Music Director in Europe when she was appointed to that role at the Theater Erfurt in 2014. It was there that she conceived and established her Expeditionskonzerte, a series of concerts introducing audiences to key aspects of the music they are about to hear. She took this popular format with her to the Staatstheater Nürnberg, where she became GMD in 2018, and will continue it in Berlin. She will make her concert debut with the Wiener Philharmoniker early in 2024, during the Salzburg Mozartwoche, and will conduct the Berliner Philharmoniker for the first time in 2025. London audiences will have the opportunity to hear her in July when she conducts six performances of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in Sir David Vickers's production.