A native of Vienna, Karl Sollak began his musical career at the Vienna Boys Choir. He also studied horn, piano and conducting at Vienna’s famous Wiener Musikhochschule and has been Associate Conductor of the Vienna State Opera. Maestro Sollak has assisted some of the world’s pre-eminent conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Michel Plasson, Leonard Slatkin, Riccardo Muti and in recordings, James Levine.
In 1989, Maestro Sollak debuted in North America with the Minnesota Orchestra. Other international guest conducting credits include concerts with the OFNUAM-Orchester in Mexico City, Orchestre Capitole du Toulouse, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira, NÖ Tonkünstler-Orchester, ORF-Orchester, Wiener Kammerorchester, San José Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Bratislava, Opera Orchestera of Temisoara, Radio Orchestra of Munich, and the Tschechisches Staatsorchester.
In addition to standard orchestral repertoire, Karl Sollak has conducted some of the world’s leading instrumentalists, including violinists Itzhak Perlman and Dmitry Sitkovestksy; cellist Ofra Harnoy; pianists Misha Dichter, Nelson Freire, Barbara Moser and Horacio Gutierrez; and singers Mirella Freni, Renata Scotto, Jerry Hadley, Ferruccio Furlanetto, José Carreras and Plácido Domingo.
Maestro Sollak’s collaborative relationship with Plácido Domingo has extended to more than a dozen successful concerts, including the Millennium Concert in Tokyo in 2000, and performances in Munich, Benidorm, Carcassonne, Taipei and Shanghai. The Plácido Domingo Live in Seoul concert was recorded and is available on Samsung Records, and he conducted the final concert in Plácido Domingo’s World Opera contest Operalia in Hamburg and the first Three Sopranos concert in Chicago.
Maestro Sollak has extensive operatic conducting experience, and has been invited to numerous European and American Opera companies in cities including Prague, Munich, Tenerif, Helsinki, and Washington. He has conducted performances of Ariadne auf Naxos, La Bohème, Carmen, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, La Damnation de Faust, Fidelio, Der fliegende Holländer, Don Giovanni, l’Italiana in Algeri, Un Ballo in Maschera, Parsifal, Rigoletto, Tosca, La Traviata, and Il Trovatore, and has guest conducted at the Prager Herbst Festival and at the Mozart Festival in Woodstock, Illinois. His operatic projects have also included the first Austrian performances of Udo Zimmermann’s opera, Weisse Rose; a new production of Verdi’s La Traviata at the Washington Opera; a performance of Aida, commemorating the anniversary of Verdi’s death; I Capuleti e i Montecchi at Opera Tenerifa; eight Tosca performances at the Finnish National Opera Helsinki; and La Traviata in Krakow.
CD credits, in addition to his work with Plácido Domingo, include recordings of Elgar (Cockaigne Overture), Stravinsky (Jeu de cartes), and Sibelius (The Swan of Tuonela) with the Munich Radio Orchestra, and a recital CD featuring the Russian soprano, Ljuba Kazarnovskaja.
Other significant performances have included regular concerts in the Wiener Musikverein (he debuted there 1995), performances with the Krakow Philharmonic Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, the highly acclaimed “return” concert of the renowned tenor Franco Bonisolli in Vienna, and a Gala concert in New York with Mirella Freni and Plácido Domingo. In North America, conducting engagements have taken him to many major cities, including Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Toronto, where he made his Canadian debut at Roy Thomson Hall in early 2004.