Franz Welser-Möst
Photo: Don Snyder
Music director Franz Welser-Möst announced today that he will not renew his contract with the Cleveland Orchestra when it expires in 2027. With a 25-year-tenure, this will make him the longest-serving Music Director on the job.
Welser-Möst was absent from the podium in the fall for medical treatment of a cancerous tumor. While he is back conducting this month, he said he will continue to receive immune therapy this year and both he and his doctors are optimistic about his health.
In the 2023/2024 season, Franz Welser-Möst is a featured Perspectives Artist at Carnegie Hall. He will conduct a number of concerts across the season with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic in a themed series entitled ‘Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice’.
From 2010 to 2014, Franz Welser-Möst was General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera. Welser-Möst is also an author. immediately following its release in summer 2020, his latest book, Als ich die Stille fand. Ein Plädoyer gegen den Lärm der Welt, became a No. 1 Austrian bestseller and is now published in its 7th edition. In 2021 the book was translated and published in English (From Silence: Finding Calm in a Dissonant World).
