Petr Popelka
Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
Renowned for his authentic, compelling, and profoundly musical approach to conducting, Petr Popelka has served as Chief Conductor of the Vienna Symphony since the 2024/25 season.
At the same time, he continues in his role as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, a position he assumed in the 2022/23 season.
He opened his Vienna tenure at the Musikverein with Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder, marking the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth at the very venue where this monumental work was premiered. Popelka’s season continued with tours throughout Europe and Asia, as well as numerous appearances at Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein. In 2025, together with the Vienna Symphony, Petr Popelka inaugurated the first edition of the new Easter festival Primavera da Vienna in Trieste.
Further highlights of the season include debut performances with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Orchestre de Paris, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra, as well as return engagements with the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bamberg Symphony, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of the German broadcasting corporations hr-Sinfonieorchester, SWR Symphonieorchester, and WDR Sinfonieorchester.
Petr Popelka has also conducted two prestigious concerts broadcast on television: the Concert for Freedom and Democracy with the Czech Philharmonic, and the Nobel Prize Concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
He has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. His operatic engagements include guest appearances at the Zurich Opera House, the Semperoper Dresden, the Theater an der Wien, and the Oslo Opera House.
Petr Popelka began his conducting career in the 2019/20 season, when he became the first musician ever to be appointed Conductor Fellow of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. Shortly thereafter, he assumed the post of Chief Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra in Oslo (2020–2023). He studied at conservatoires in his native Prague and in Freiburg. From 2010 to 2019, he served as Deputy Principal Double Bass with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden. In addition to conducting, he is also active as a composer.
