One of today’s most celebrated conductors, Franz Welser-Möst leads two of the world’s great cultural institutions as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra and General Musikdirektor of the Vienna Staatsoper. 2012/13 marks his eleventh season in Cleveland, and in 2008 his contract was extended until the orchestra's centennial year in 2018. With The Cleveland Orchestra he has built close relationships with Carnegie Hall in New York, the Musikverein in Vienna and the Lucerne Festival. Recent seasons have also seen residencies at the Salzburg Festival and at Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and since 2007 Mr Welser-Möst and the orchestra have also held an annual residency in Miami. 2011 also saw the launch of a biennial residency at New York's Lincoln Center Festival.  With The Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst has presented thirteen world and fifteen United States premieres, and in recent seasons he has led a sequence of fully-staged productions of the Mozart/Da Ponte operas which have re-established The Cleveland Orchestra as an operatic ensemble. Since 2010 Franz Welser-Möst has also served as Generalmusikdirektor of the Vienna Staatsoper. His long partnership with the company has included an acclaimed new production of Wagner'

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"Dynamics, controlled impatience, intimate poetry: all there. Cheers and Jubilee for Welser-Möst. | Vienna State Opera 'Ring Cycle' "

Der Standard May 1st 2013

"This was one of the most beautiful New Year's Concerts since Karajan and Kleiber. Franz Welser-Möst knows how the music of the Strauss-dynasty, the music of Lanner and Hellmesberger has to sound."

Österreich Jan 2nd 2011

"The Cleveland Orchestra’s triumphant performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome… The great interlude…was stunning, not just for the virtuosity with which the orchestra dealt with its turbulent pile-up of leitmotifs, but also for the way that the eerily quiet passage for contrabassoon held the audience rapt. [Franz Welser-Möst] ensured that there was ample excitement to go around, while letting the music unfold with structural logic and maximizing opportunities for sumptuous playing."

Musical America May 28th 2012

"What the [Vienna] Philharmonic Orchestra under the confident conductorship Franz Welser-Moests deliver is breathtaking.... it is especially exhilarating in its musical swing and the expressive directness."

Die Presse Sep 12th 2011

"And in fact, [the Bolero] sounded fabulous—with those weapons that Welser-Möst handles so scrupulously: precision, rhythmic control, a certain highly effective minimalism. All that, plus the assurance of having an orchestra like the Cleveland at his command: compact, secure, even luminous. The artistic results are overwhelmingly effective. It is the art of perfection, pure and simple"

El Pais Nov 1st 2011

"It was impressive to see how Welser-Möst, now in his tenth year as the boss of Cleveland, managed to organize a rich musical material and an abundant personnel and make room, in the midst of all the collaborative power, for soloistic moments"

Salzburger Nachrichten Nov 1st 2011

"Yet for all technical craftsmanship, one can also bring out the eloquence of this music, if one lets true emotions resonate. Franz Welser-Möst has succeeded in doing just that, since he has the finest string playing to build upon and is thus able to turn a breathtakingly beautiful study in sound into a moving, expressive musical statement without forcing the interpretation in the least"

Die Presse Nov 1st 2011

"Mr. Welser-Möst’s feel for Bruckner’s sound and idiom was evident in lucid balances, well-judged tempos and a keen sense of how to shape phrases naturally. The orchestral playing was transcendently beautiful, with warm, burnished strings and radiant, weighty brass chorales that were particularly breathtaking… a final demonstration on Bruckner’s part of effortful cohesion and unblinking devotion, given a spellbinding account that showed Mr. Welser-Möst and the orchestra in their finest light. "

New York Times Jul 18th 2011

"Almost everything is perfect. That starts with Conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who, on the stand of the philharmonic playing orchestra, makes Wagner sound accomplished. Superb, how the Viennese General Music Director and the marvellous musician sound out all the colours of the sound, how subtle and still highly dramatic Wagners universe arises. Even in the ring cycle it is very rare to hear the “Walkuere” so exemplarily"

Der Kurier Jun 1st 2011

"...also under the conductors there is a quintet of large calibres. After Pierre Boulez, Christian Thielemann, Riccardo Muti and Mariss Jansons it was down to Franz Welser- Möst, to take the Vienna Philharmonic again to a collective flight, which was present the whole summer."

Salzburger Nachrichten Aug 25th 2011

"Mr. Welser-Möst drew crisp, organic playing from the great Cleveland Orchestra. But by not driving the rhythm too hard, he allowed the long structural spans to emerge. The performance captured the ambiguity of this somber, restless music. This is an orchestral piece on high alert. Mr. Welser-Möst brought structural shape to the run-on scherzo, which is not easy. His account of the elusive, iconoclastic finale, which somehow merges complex fugues with a sprawling sonata form, was exhilarating. This was an inspired start to what should be a significant series. "

The New York Times Jul 14th 2011

"Much of the music, though, eloquently heralds a more mythic hero, facing and vanquishing mighty adversaries. The sweep of the music is grand, perfect material for the Cleveland Orchestra’s marvelous ensemble of players and its Austrian-born conductor. Their performance was carefully designed for ebb and flow, for dramatic builds and pensive musings, and to showcase the richness of Strauss’ orchestration. "

The Herald Times Jan 27th 2011

"Conductor Franz Welser-Möst…seems most at home in this repertoire, and he made this Heldenleben work by reveling in its extreme nature. This is music that is meant to stun, to overwhelm, and so here the development section was hugely loud and rumbled and roiled just shy of over the top, the slower passages were plushly melodic and nearly glacial, and the mocking woodwinds of the Adversaries section bit with the sharpest of contrasts. … it was successful because Welser-Möst gave it shape and narrative. Most gratifying was the depth of excellence throughout the orchestra."

Miami Herald Feb 7th 2011