Biography

These dual appointments continue a career distinguished by sustained relationships with orchestras. Liebreich was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2018 to 2022, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice from 2012 to 2019, and Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra from 2006 to 2016.

His relationship with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra began with an acclaimed debut at the Rudolfinum in 2017. Critic Petr Veber wrote that the orchestra “played as if reborn”, describing Liebreich as musical, energetic, modest, and unshowy, and praising his Brahms Fourth for its conducting brilliance. The encounter led directly to his appointment as the orchestra’s next Chief Conductor and Artistic Director.

At the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (NOSPR), Liebreich presided over an important period in the orchestra’s development, including the opening of its acclaimed new concert hall in Katowice in 2014, when Krystian Zimerman joined the orchestra for Brahms’s First Piano Concerto. His work there encompassed a broad symphonic repertoire alongside an important strand of Polish and Central European music. Reviewing Liebreich and NOSPR in Mahler’s Third Symphony, Bachtrack hailed him the “master sculptor”, praising his “extremely precise baton technique”, his sensitivity to chamber-musical sonorities, and the masterful construction of the work’s large-scale architecture.

During his decade as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Liebreich developed an approach to orchestral playing centred on clarity, flexibility, chamber-musical responsiveness, and curiosity across repertoire. Looking back on the orchestra’s history, BR-KLASSIK credited the Liebreich years with opening new geographical and sonic horizons and developing a finely differentiated, overtone-rich orchestral sound, while elsewhere praising his ability to achieve “a convincing synthesis of elegance and power”.

Liebreich’s guest-conducting career has included the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Wiener Symphoniker, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. His many artistic collaborators have included, among others, Martha Argerich, Maria João Pires, Antoine Tamestit, Krystian Zimerman, Lisa Batiashvili, Isabelle Faust, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Gautier Capuçon, Alban Gerhardt, Leila Josefowicz, and Veronika Eberle.

Opera and vocal repertoire form an important strand of his work. He has conducted Enescu’s Oedipe and Schoeck’s Penthesilea at Oper Frankfurt, Massenet’s Cendrillon at the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, and Madama Butterfly for Nederlandse Reisopera, alongside concert performances of repertoire ranging from Purcell and Gluck to Wagner and Richard Strauss.

Alongside conducting, Liebreich has developed a distinctive profile as a curator and artistic programmer. In 2011, he became the first European Artistic Director of the Tongyeong International Music Festival in South Korea, where he established an East-West residency programme bringing together artists and composers including Unsuk Chin, Toshio Hosokawa, Beat Furrer, Heiner Goebbels, and Martin Grubinger. He subsequently founded and served as Artistic Director of the Katowice Kultura Natura Festival, bringing orchestras, ensembles, and soloists including the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, András Schiff, and Leif Ove Andsnes to Katowice.

Since 2018, Liebreich has also served as Chairman of the Richard-Strauss-Gesellschaft, following Wolfgang Sawallisch and Brigitte Fassbaender. His close identification with the Austro-German tradition sits alongside a conviction that orchestral music must remain a living art form: “Music is not a museum,” he has said.

Liebreich’s discography reflects the breadth of his repertoire. His recordings with NOSPR for Accentus Music include Lutosławski, Szymanowski, Penderecki, and Zemlinsky, with the third release in the series winning the 2017 International Classical Music Award for Best Collection. His ECM recording of Tigran Mansurian’s Requiem with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and RIAS Kammerchor was nominated for a Grammy Award and won the 2018 International Classical Music Award for Contemporary Music. His recording with Mahan Esfahani and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra of concertos by Martinů, Krása, and Kalabis was awarded four stars by The Guardian. His latest Accentus release with the Orquesta de València, featuring Ana Vidović in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez alongside Ravel’s Boléro, was released in October 2026.

Born in Regensburg into a family with Moravian-Jewish roots, Liebreich studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and the Salzburg Mozarteum. Among the decisive influences on his development were Michael Gielen, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Claudio Abbado. Abbado invited him to assist on projects with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Easter Festival and with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. In 2016, Liebreich was awarded the Bavarian Culture Special Prize by the Bavarian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, and Art.