Richard Hein

Conductor of the Prague State Opera

Richard Hein has been a conductor engaged with the State Opera Prague since 1997. He studied conducting with Professor Milan Horvát, and with Wolfgang Bosic at the Hochschule für Musik in Graz, Austria. Still before completing his studies with an honours degree, he received the Culture Prize awarded by the town of Singen in Germany. In the subsequent period, he worked with a number of opera and symphony orchestras, recording for ORF and appearing in concert productions in the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Japan. As an opera conductor, he obtained a post at Slezské divadlo (Silesia Theatre) in Opava, from where he embarked on a professional road leading through the opera houses of Olomouc, Plzeň and Brno, to Prague. Since 1999 he has coupled his commitment in the Prague State Opera with conducting the Opera Mozart summer festival season mounted annually at Prague’s Stavovské (Estates) Theatre. He is likewise simultaneously active in the domain of symphonic music, working among other orchestras with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra of Ostrava, the Olomouc Philharmonic, the Plzeň Philharmonic, and the Western Bohemia Symphony Orchestra in Mariánské Lázně. Moreover, he has been involved as both interpreter and educator in a project entitled Toujours Mozart, staged concurrently in Salzburg, Austria, and in Prague. He is a member of the board of jurors of the Symphonic Workshop international piano and conducting competition in Kroměříž, Czech Republic. Since 2001 he has been the artistic director of the Harmonia Mozartiana Pragensis ensemble. Richard Hein also received the prestigious City of Augsburg Culture Prize 2007 in Germany.