Professor Lucius A. Hemmer, born in 1965, has been the General Manager of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra since 2003.
His goal is to provide the people of the Nuremberg metropolitan region with added cultural value through the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and to enhance the orchestra’s social relevance to the highest level.
He first studied bassoon and later also conducting in Hannover, Philadelphia, and Munich. In addition, he completed a degree in business administration at the AFW Business Academy in Bad Harzburg.
He was a member of the Festival Orchestra at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, where he performed as principal bassoonist under Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache, Georg Solti, Valery Gergiev and Christoph Eschenbach. As a conductor, he led the Camerata Academica, the orchestra of the Technical University of Munich, for four years. His extensive involvement in radio, CD and television productions completes his musical profile.
Hemmer has won numerous awards, including two first prizes in the German national competition ‘Jugend musiziert’. He has also received a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. For many years he worked as a freelance musician and soloist and as a lecturer at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich.
For classical concerts, Hemmer’s excellent international network enables him to regularly bring the most renowned artists of our time to Nuremberg. Under his direction, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra has also developed a cross-genre approach to the concert experience, integrating video and film, literature and dance, as well as pop.
He is particularly committed to working with children and young people, introducing them to classical music through age-appropriate concepts. Programmes for people with dementia complete the offering.
In addition to his role as General Manager, Professor Lucius A. Hemmer has been teaching the key qualification ‘Music Law, Marketing and Event Management’ at the Hochschule für Musik in Nuremberg since the winter semester of 2009/10 and has been appointed Honourary Professor there in 2019.
From 1993 Hemmer turned increasingly to music management, founding and directing various ensembles and becoming an organiser. He worked with Justus Frantz’s team at the Philharmonie der Nationen as tour manager and later as orchestra manager. In 1999 he moved to the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Halle as orchestra manager, and subsequently became director of the Kammerphilharmonie Amadé.
