Ulrich Kern impresses with his stylistically confident interpretations on opera and concert stages and also devotes himself with great passion to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Born in Stuttgart, the internationally sought-after conductor studied at the music conservatories in Stuttgart and Weimar. He received further decisive impulses from Bernard Haitink, Jorma Panula and, in the USA, from David Zinman. Through the support of the German Music Council's Conductor's Forum, he conducted at the Mainz State Theater and the Kiel Opera, among others.
Ulrich Kern has now conducted over 50 stage works. His repertoire ranges from Mozart's late operas, Wagner's “Tannhäuser”, Stravinsky's “Le sacre du printemps” to Hartmann's opera “Simplicius Simplicissimus” and Henze's last opera “Gisela!”, which Ulrich Kern rehearsed at the Semperoper Dresden. In 2023, the opera evening “Simplicius Simplicissimus” by Karl Amadeus Hartmann with Ulrich Kern on the podium was named the most unusual performance of the season in the critics' survey of the international music theater magazine Opernwelt.
Ulrich Kern has appeared as a guest conductor with renowned orchestras, including the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Staatsorchester der Rheinischen Philharmonie Koblenz, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt, Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg and the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker. He made his debut in the USA in 2009 with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra and in France in 2011 with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. Ulrich Kern has appeared at theaters in Bremen, Bielefeld, Osnabrück and at the State Theater in Salvador, Brazil. The conductor is a welcome guest at internationally renowned festivals. He has conducted at the Aspen Music Festival Colorado, the Nargen Festival Tallinn, the Ruhrtriennale, the Impuls-Festival Sachsen-Anhalt, the International Days for New Music Darmstadt, in renowned concert halls in South America such as the Teatro Solis in Montevideo and the new concert hall CCK in Buenos Aires.
In the 2024/25 season, Ulrich Kern returns to the Berlin Philharmonie to conduct the Berliner Symphoniker's New Year's Eve concerts. Further guest conducting engagements will take him to the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker and the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, among others. He will also make his debut with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf and with the Bergische Symphoniker. At the Gerhart-Hauptmann Theater Görlitz, Ulrich Kern's focus is on several concerts with the Neue Lausitzer Philharmonie, as well as opera evenings with Puccini's “La Boheme” and the German premiere of Leonard Bernstein's "Peter Pan".
Ulrich Kern works with outstanding soloists, including Harriet Krijgh and Daniel Müller-Schott at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, with pianist Martin Stadtfeld and with harpist Anneleen Lenaerts in Ghent.
Ulrich Kern is particularly interested in working with contemporary composers. In 2017, for example, he opened the Flanders Festival in Ghent with a world premiere by Kalevi Aho, performed by Ensemble Resonanz Hamburg. In the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the conductor premiered works by Rebecca Saunders and Sven-Ingo Koch. With the MDR Symphony Orchestra, Ulrich Kern premiered specially composed works in Leipzig as the musical highlight of the Bauhaus centenary celebrations in 2019. A concert recording of the symphonic poem "Die Regentrude2 by Klaus Wüsthoff was released on CD with Martina Gedeck as the speaker.
Radio recordings for Saarländischer Rundfunk and Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, as well as concert broadcasts on Südwestdeutscher and Norddeutscher Rundfunk, round off his extensive artistic activities.
Ulrich Kern has received numerous awards: for example, he received the German Music Prize Echo Klassik 2014 in the category of Concert Recording of the Year from the 20th/21st Century for the CD "French Trombone Concertos" with trombonist Fabrice Millischer and the Deutschen Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken. In 2006, Ulrich Kern won the Conducting Competition of the German Music Academies, which was sponsored by the Herbert von Karajan Foundation in Berlin, and also received the special prize for the best interpretation in the field of opera at this competition.
Ulrich Kern is currently First Kapellmeister and Deputy General Music Director at the Theater Görlitz, which has honored him several times for his extraordinary artistic achievements with the special prize of the theater association and the audience award.