Petr Popelka

Praised for his scintillating, authentic and inclusive approach to conducting and driven entirely by the music, Petr Popelka has been the Chief Conductor at the Wiener Symphoniker since the 2024/25 season. He is also the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra until the end of the 2025/26 season.

The 2025/26 season is underscored by Wiener Symphoniker’s 125th anniversary celebration in October 2025 with a gala concert followed by a European tour, which will continue to Asia during Spring 2026. In addition to various performances at the Wiener Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Petr Popelka and the Wiener Symhphoniker will launch their second edition of the “Primavera da Vienna” festival in Trieste following its success last season.

Further highlights of the season include his debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia as well as his return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. With the Czech Philharmonic, he will embark on a summer festival tour to Grafenegg and George Enescu Festival.

As an acclaimed opera conductor, Petr Popelka will lead the new production of Strauss II Die Fledermaus with the Wiener Symphoniker at Theater an der Wien. Furthermore, he will conduct Tosca at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and return to Bayerische Staatsoper for Rusalka during the 2026 Munich Opera Festival.

Previous debuts have taken him to the Staatskapelle Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra among others. In the last season, he featured in prestigious televised concerts such as the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra's Velvet Revolution concert and the 2024 Nobel Prize Concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. In the pit, he made guest appearances at the Zurich Opera House (Mozart Don Giovanni), Bayerische Staatsoper (Janáček Káťa Kabanová), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Wagner Tristan und Isolde), Semperoper Dresden (Shostakovich The Nose) and Theater an der Wien (Weinberger Schwanda).

Petr Popelka began his conducting career during the 2019/20 season after serving as deputy principal double bassist at the Staatskapelle Dresden from 2010 to 2019. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed as the Chief Conductor at the Norwegian Radio Orchestra in Oslo (2020–2023). He received his musical training in his hometown in Prague and Freiburg.

As of August 2025