Marko Letonja

The Slovene Marko Letonja studied piano and conducting with Professor Anton Nanut at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. At the same time, he was a student of Professor Otmar Suitner at the Vienna Academy of Music, from which he graduated in 1989.

From 1991 to 2003, he was Musical Director of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. He has conducted orchestras including the Wiener Symphoniker, Münchner and Bremen Philharmoniker, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne and Monterey Symphony Orchestras, the Orchestra Sinfonica "Giuseppe Verdi" Milan on tour and the opera orchestras of Cagliari and Stockholm (with Nina Stemme).

From 2003 to 2006, he was Music Director and Chief Conductor of both the Symphony Orchestra and the Opera in Basel, where he conducted new productions of Tannhäuser, La Traviata, Der Freischütz, Boris Godunov, Tristan und Isolde, Rigoletto and Don Giovanni, among others. 

On his first visit to Australasia in 2007, he conducted concerts with the Auckland Philharmonia, Orchestra Victoria and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In 2008 he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of Orchestra Victoria Melbourne. He is again returning to Australia/New Zealand for concert tours 2010 and 2011. From 2012, Maestro Letonja will take up the position Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.