Biography

Israeli-born conductor Asher Fisch appears with many of the world’s most renowned orchestras and opera companies. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Seattle Opera and formerly served as music director of the New Israeli Opera and the Vienna Volksoper. Next September he becomes Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

This season, Mr. Fisch returns to the Metropolitan Opera for Parsifal and to Seattle for Fidelio. His engagements at German opera houses (Hamburg and Munich) include The Magic Flute, The Flying Dutchman, and Manon Lescaut; he leads symphonic programs with the Atlanta Symphony and Kansas City Symphony before returning to Seattle in 2013 for its quadrennial complete Ring cycle.  

Asher Fisch began his conducting career as Daniel Barenboim’s assistant at the Berlin State Opera. Among the North American orchestras he has conducted are those of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Saint Louis, Montreal, and the National Symphony in Washington DC. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut at this week’s concerts. In Europe, he appears regularly at the Munich Philharmonic and has also conducted the Berlin Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the Orchestre National de France, among others. In Australia, he has become a regular guest with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth and with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra since leading and recording a Wagner Ring cycle with that ensemble for the Adelaide Festival in 2004.

A regular guest at leading European opera houses, Mr. Fisch has conducted repertory ranging from Mozart to Berg at such venues as the Berlin State Opera, Vienna State Opera, La Scala Milan, the Paris Opera, Bavarian State Opera, and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, where he conducted the concert gala celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the Royal Opera House, recorded and released on the EMI label.  

Mr. Fisch made his US debut with the Los Angeles Opera in 1995 and has since conducted at the Met, Chicago Lyric Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. In 2003 he inaugurated the new Seattle Opera House with a new production of Parsifal. In 2004 he led a new production of Wagner’s Ring cycle for the South Australian Opera, which won ten honors at Australia’s Helpmann Awards, including best opera and best music direction.

Mr. Fisch is an accomplished pianist, with a first solo disc of piano transcriptions recently released on the Melba label. 

(October 2012)