Schultsz becomes chief conductor of the Collegium Musicum Basel
Jan Schultsz, who also teaches at the Basel Music Academy, will become Principal Conductor of the Collegium Musicum Basel (CMB) from the 2024/25 season. He succeeds Johannes Schlaefli in this position. Benjamin Reiners becomes guest conductor.
Born in 1965 Jan Schultszinitially studied horn and piano in his home city of Amsterdam as well as in Basel and Lausanne and played as a horn player in various orchestras. At the beginning of the 1990s, he trained as a conductor with Manfred Honeck, Ralf Weikert and Ilya Musin in St. Petersburg. He lives in Basel, where he is a professor at the University of Music. As a guest conductor, he mainly leads orchestras in Switzerland, Holland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, China and South America.
He was Kapellmeister at the Norske Opera in Oslo, conducted the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest and the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège. For 10 years he was Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de Neuchâtel. In 2000, he founded the Opera St. Moritz and was its Artistic Director until 2012. He has been artistic director of the Engadin Festival since 2008 and artistic director of the Schubertiade Riehen since 2022.
At the same time as the election of the Chief Conductor, the Board of the CMB the position of Principal Guest Conductor will be filled for the first time, also from the 24/25 season. Benjamin Reiners, outgoing General Music Director of the state capital Kiel and future Chief Conductor of the Robert Schumann Philharmonie Chemnitz and GMD of Theater Chemnitz, will take on this role.
