Joan Pagès

Joan Pagès was born in Lleida, Spain. He graduated with honours from a piano, cello, baroque cello and chamber music class in a local school. Further cello studies took him to the Detmold College of Music in 1995. From 1999 to 2003, he studied conducting at the Franz Liszt College of Music in Weimar with professors Nicolas Pasquet and Günther Kahlert.   

After graduation, he took up a job as a tutor and an assistant choir director at the German National Theatre in Weimar and worked there until 2006. 

In August 2006, he was placed 2^nd at the ‘Luigi Mancinelli’ Opera Conductors’ International Competition in Orvieto, Italy, where he conducted the opera ‘La Bohème’.   

Joan Pagès is an extremely versatile conductor. Whether it is about the regional differences of historical performance practice, conducting contemporary premieres (more than 50 pieces) or film music, he is knowledgeable about everything. Here we should mention the successful premieres of three operas for children, the chamber music version of the music of the film ‘Metropolis’ (Fritz Lang) (“A congenial accompaniment” – Filmnetz) and conducting the innovative chamber orchestra ‘Ensemble Iberoamericano’ (“A fascinating cosmopolitan project” – Klassik). His first ‘original’ CD by the title ‘Winnipeg. Musik und Exil’ was released not long ago.

He has conducted several orchestras in Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary and Latin America.

He has held master courses for conductors in Central and South America (Mexico, Haiti, Brazil).

As a pianist, he has given concerts throughout Europe, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, the Czech Republic and Hungary, both as a partner of several chamber music ensembles and a pianist of renowned singers.

He has been the director of the orchestra of the ‘Schloss Belvedere’ Secondary Music School since 2009 and a teacher of orchestral conducting at the ‘Franz Liszt’ College of Music in Weimar. He has produced several radio recordings with the orchestra for the German radio station MDR.