Stephan Frucht began taking violin lessons at the age of five. When he was eight, he had already debuted with a violin concerto by Vivaldi. Frucht first began studying violin at the Musikhochschule in Hanover with Jens Ellermann as his teacher. Later, he studied at the Universität der Künste Berlin in Thomas Brandis’ master class. After graduating with his ‘Diplom’ degree, he began training as a conductor with Rolf Reuter at the “Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler” in Berlin. Since then, he has been regularly making his mark as conductor and ensemble director.
Frucht has won many distinctions and scholarship for his musical work, including the Competition of the Berlin Broadcasters, the Richard Wagner Association, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and the Karl Flesch Academy. The composers he mainly focuses on are Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Bruckner, but he also gives much attention to contemporary composers, such as Victor Ullmann, Friedrich Gulda or Manfred Trojahn, who has written compositions for him.
His discography now includes not only many radio recordings, but also several CDs recorded for Sony Music, Haenssler Classics or Edel Music in collaboration with radio orchestras in Munich, Berlin or Leipzig, as well as the Karajan Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Münchener Kammerorchester as well as Orchestras in China and the US. In doing so, he has worked with soloists as Albrecht Mayer, Christoph Eschenbach, Wenzel Fuchs, Radoslaw Szulc, Daniel Hope or Lars Vogt.
Frucht is an honorary professor at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe and an university lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge. Besides, he holds many honorary posts on boards like Bayreuther Festspiele or Berlin States Opera. Frucht also is the Artistic Director of the Siemens Arts Program.
