Philipp Amelung
Conductor
Philipp Amelung is one of the versatile choral and orchestral conductors of his generation. He began his musical career at the age of eight in the Tölz Boys' Choir, where he received sustained training in vocal and speech training. After leaving school, he worked there for a year as a voice coach and then studied singing with Peter Petrov at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich. At the same time, Philipp Amelung began studying choral conducting with Prof Gläser and orchestral conducting with Prof Herrmann Michael and Prof Bruno Weil. The collaboration with Bruno Weil was particularly formative for Philipp Amelung. He completed both programmes with the master class.
He also gained new impetus by taking part in conducting courses, including at the International Bach Academy Stuttgart under Helmuth Rilling. Bruno Weil invited him to be assistant conductor at his Carmel Bach Festival in California in 2002.
Philipp Amelung has conducted a large number of orchestras, including the Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim, the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra and the North Bohemian Philharmonic Orchestra Teplice. He also works closely with various baroque orchestras and the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia, which appointed him Principal Guest Conductor in 2025. In 2000, he co-founded the now traditional Ickinger Konzertzyklus, a small festival in the south of Munich, which he artistically directed for 25 years.
Influenced by his theological upbringing, he turned to sacred literature at an early age. Even before his studies, he founded the Vokal-Ensemble Icking, with which he performed oratorios from Bach to Verdi. In 2001, he was appointed acting director of the Munich Bach Choir. In addition to his own concerts with the renowned ensemble, he also rehearsed for Peter Schreier and Bruno Weil, among others, for four years.
From 2001 to 2005, Philipp Amelung held a teaching position for singing at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich. In autumn 2005, he was appointed director of the Schola Cantorum Leipzig, with which he undertook concert tours to Spain, Poland, France, Italy, Slovakia and the USA. From 2006 to 2011, he was also director of the Leipzig Vocal Ensemble, a chamber choir founded by St Thomas' Cantor Georg Christoph Biller in 1976, with which he regularly organises the traditional motet at St Thomas' Church in Leipzig and performs Bach's Christmas Oratorio and a Passion at the same location every year. In the same year, he was appointed artistic director of the Munich Chamber Choir. He made his debut with this professional ensemble in June 2007 with Handel's Judas Maccabaeus in Munich's Prinzregententheater. After further performances, including in Italy, the ensemble and Philipp Amelung received an invitation to the renowned Herrenchiemsee Festival in summer 2009, which was immediately followed by re-invitations for 2010 and 2011.
Since 2011, he has been teaching orchestral conducting to students at the Catholic University of Sacred Music in Rottenburg.
On 1 April 2011, Philipp Amelung took up the post of University Music Director at the University of Tübingen. Amelung was selected from 140 applicants by a university committee after extensive auditions with the university choir and orchestra.