Oscar Jockel currently serves as assistant conductor with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Kirill Petrenko. He secured a two-year position as a conducting fellow at the Karajan Academy, being awarded the ‘Siemens Conductors Scholarship’ after winning the conducting competition at the Philharmonie Berlin in October 2021. His role involves not only assisting the chief conductor in both concert and opera performances but also conducting independent concert projects in collaboration with the academy members of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Also in 2021, Oscar Jockel was appointed assistant conductor at the Philharmonie de Paris with the Ensemble intercontemporain and its music director Matthias Pintscher.
In the 2023/24 season he follows invitations to the PKF – Prague Philharmonia, the Tonkünstler-Orchester Wien, the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, the Wiener Concert-Verein and conducts the world premieres of his own compositions with the Karajan-Akademie and the Sinfonietta Leipzig. Last season he made guest appearances at the Salzburg Easter Festival in a production at the Felsenreitschule as well as at the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden at the International Shostakovich Days in Gohrisch, the opening concert of the International Bruckner Festival 2022 in Linz, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Munich Radio Orchestra and the Ensemble intercontemporain in Paris.
For his work as a composer and conductor, Oscar Jockel received the Herbert von Karajan Prize, which was presented to him at the 2023 Salzburg Easter Festival. His recent and current commissions include works for the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein, the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Camerata Salzburg, the Quatuor Diotima (Brucknerhaus Linz), a music theatre work and a collaboration with Westbam (Salzburg Easter Festival and Mendelssohn Orchestra Academy of the Gewandhaus Leipzig). In 2020/21, he was appointed the first Composer in Residence at the Brucknerhaus Linz.
As a conductor or conducting assistant, among others to Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Reinhard Goebel or Hartmut Haenchen, he has already worked with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Klangforum Wien, the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.
At the 2018 Järvi Conducting Academy in Estonia, he was taught by Paavo Järvi and his father, Neeme Järvi. In 2019, he was awarded a Conducting Seminar Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the guidance of Andris Nelsons and Stefan Asbury. Following his win of the Aspen Conducting Prize at the Aspen Music Festival in the summer of 2021, as a Conducting Fellow of the American Conducting Academy, he received a re-invitation for 2022.
In 2021, he was accepted as a conducting fellow into the Forum Dirigieren of the Deutsche Musikrat.
SEPTEMBER 2023
