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Patrick Furrer

Patrick Furrer

Born and raised in Switzerland, Patrick Furrer studied piano in Zurich and conducting in Bern, Vienna and Aspen. He started his career at the Theater Basel as a répétiteur and conductor, working in many productions. Later he served as 1st Kapellmeister at the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.

He has led numerous new productions at various opera houses, such as Hansel and Gretel, Jonny spielt auf, Un ballo in maschera, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and The merry wives of Windsor in Innsbruck, L’elisir d’Amore at the Volksoper Vienna, Don Giovanni in Lucerne, Die Fledermaus with the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (where he also conducted Mahler 5 & 9), Béatrice et Bénédict and La Bohème at the Northwestern Opera Theater, where he will also lead Hansel and Gretel this season.  At the Jerusalem Lyric Opera, he will lead the production of Bluebeard’s Castle. Patrick conducted performances of Cosi fan tutte, Otello, The Magic Flute and Werther in Innsbruck, Rigoletto in St. Gallen, Un Ballo in maschera and Magic Flute in Mannheim, Hansel and Gretel in Nürnberg, Penthesilea, La Bohème and Flying Dutchman back in Basel as well as Hoffmann at the Zurich Opera House. 


In the symphonic field, Patrick conducted orchestras like the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the symphony orchestras of Basel, Bern, St. Gallen and Biel, the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, the Niederösterreichisches Tonkünstlerorchester, the Orchestre du Conservatoire National de Paris, as well as the opening ceremony of the Swiss National Exposition. 


He has worked at the Salzburg Festival, as well as at San Francisco Opera and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 2022 he conducted the Merola Grand Finale at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.


Patrick has been a member of the MET’s music staff since 2011. He conducted performances of Magic Flute, Lohengrin and Don Carlos, the latter also as part of the MET’s “Live in HD” series. This season he will lead the revival of Julie Taymor’s famed holiday production of Magic Flute.