Thomas Sanderling grew up in St Petersburg, where his father Kurt Sanderling was conductor of the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. After graduating from the Music School of the Leningrad Conservatory he studied conducting at the Music Academy in East Berlin. At the age of 24 he became the Music Director of the Halle Opera. At an early age he appeared frequently with leading East German orchestras and opera houses, including the Dresden Staatskapelle and Leipzig Gewandhaus. He won the Berlin Critics’ Prize for his performances at the Komische Oper. After Shostakovich heard him with the State Orchestra of Russia, the composer asked him to give the German premières of his Symphonies Nos. 13 and 14, and this relationship also saw him make the world première recording of The Michelangelo Suite, Shostakovich’s last orchestral work. This recording led to work as assistant to Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan.
Thomas Sanderling has conducted extensively on the international stage, with orchestras in North America including the National, Dallas, Baltimore and Vancouver Symphonies, in Europe with the Royal Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki Philharmonics, and in Britain the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic. He is also a regular guest conductor of Radio Orchestras in Britain, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. In Japan he won the Grand Prix of the Osaka Critics twice in three years and in 1992 became Music Director of the Osaka Symphony Orchestra, which gave him the title Music Director Laureate for Life. Thomas Sanderling is equally acclaimed for his operatic work. He was Permanent Guest Conductor of the Berlin Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden from 1978 until 1983, when he moved to the West, conducting there an extensive repertory of operas by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, Verdi, Smetana, Dvořák, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss, and others. Among notable appearances have been his conducting of Die Zauberflöte, and of Le nozze di Figaro at the Vienna State Opera and at the Bavarian State Opera, Frankfurt, the Berlin Deutsche Oper and the Hamburg State Opera. He has also conducted Die Zauberflöte at La Fenice in Venice and Don Giovanni at the Royal Danish Opera and the Finnish National Opera.
Thomas Sanderling enjoys a strong relationship with the St Petersburg Philharmonic where he has appeared in concert regularly. His recording of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony with the orchestra, its first Mahler recording, achieved great success, culminating in a Cannes Classical Award in 1998. His following recordings of the Brahms Symphonies with the Philharmonia achieved similar recognition and attracted critics’ prizes in record magazines throughout the world. Since 2000 Sanderling has also been Principal Guest Conductor of the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra.
