Andreas Fellner was Music Director of the Landeskapelle Eisenach for the years 2016 and 2017, until the orchestra merged with the Thüringen Philhamonie Gotha.
In only a short while, he captivated audiences by introducing his programs from the stage, conducting concerts with the local music and elementary schools, and launching interactive projects in the community. Concerts were frequently sold out and attendance rose in tandem with a newfound community engagement.
Within the framework of symphony concerts, Andreas Fellner invited prestigious soloists and guest conductors, commissioned new works, and succeeded in taking his audiences along ambitious and creative journeys through varied musical styles.
Together with the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Weimar, Andreas Fellner initiated two remarkable partnerships. In conjunction with the department for opera and singing, he conducted Benjamin Britten’s “The Beggar’s Opera”. With the Weimar-Jena Institute of Musicology, Andreas Fellner brought back to life compositions from Eisenach by Johann Melchior Molter and Georg Phillip Telemann, performing them for the first time since their premieres.
A magnificent event was the performance of “Wirbel im Orchester” by Matthias Kaufmann, in which two hundred elementary school children sang together with the Landeskapelle Eisenach, in order to fight for the preservation of their city’s music culture.
This full-throated advocacy for the survival of the theater, oftentimes with the help of local politicians – and sometimes without – was also an important part of the work of Andreas Fellner in Eisenach.