Andrew Manze is widely celebrated as one of the most stimulating and inspirational conductors of his generation. His extensive and scholarly knowledge of the repertoire, together with his boundless energy and warmth, mark him out. He held the position of Chief Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hanover from 2014 until 2023. Since 2018, he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In April 2024, he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, starting from September 2024.
His time as Chief Conductor in Hanover saw him lead the orchestra in highly successful tours to China in 2016 and 2019, as well as a return to Japan in 2022. Andrew Manze and the orchestra made a major series of award-winning recordings for Pentatone, focused on the works of Mendelssohn and Mozart. The first recording in the Mendelssohn series won the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. The conductor has also recorded a cycle of the complete Vaughan Williams symphonies with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for Onyx Classics to critical acclaim.
In great demand as a guest conductor across the globe, Andrew Manze has long-standing relationships with many leading orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Bamberger Symphoniker, Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish Radio, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and the Dresdner Philharmonie. In the 2024/25 season, he will make debuts with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, and return to the Hallé Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Salzburg Festival.
In North America, Andrew Manze has been a regular guest at the “Mostly Mozart” Festival in New York City, and in recent seasons has conducted the Boston Symphony, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics.
The 2022/23 season saw him make his operatic debut with the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, conducting performances of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” alongside Schoenberg’s “Erwartung”. Other highlights of recent seasons include his debuts with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Orchestra.
From 2006 to 2014, he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. During this time, he made a number of recordings with them including Beethoven’s “Eroica” (Harmonia Mundi) and a cycle of Brahms symphonies (CPO). He was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2008 to 2011 and held the title of Associate Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for four seasons.
After reading Classics at Cambridge University, Andrew Manze studied the violin and rapidly became a leading specialist in the world of historical performance practice. He became Associate Director of the Academy of Ancient Music in 1996, and then Artistic Director of the English Concert from 2003 to 2007. As a violinist, he released an astonishing variety of recordings, many of them award-winning.
Andrew Manze is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, Visiting Professor at the Oslo Academy, and has contributed to new editions of sonatas and concerti by Bach and Mozart, published by Bärenreiter and Breitkopf & Härtel. He also teaches, writes about, and edits music, as well as broadcasting regularly on radio and television. In November 2011 he received the prestigious Rolf Schock Prize in Stockholm.