The 34-year-old Israeli conductor and pianist Lahav Shani will most likely take over the musical direction of the Munich Philharmonic. While the rumor mill is still brewing in Munich about Valery Gergiev’s successor and nobody wants to confirm this prominent personality, at least officially, Shani himself is said to have already announced his forthcoming appointment according to consistent reports from Israeli and international media.
In a letter to the members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he is chief conductor. It says: “Recently it became known that the Munich Philharmonic have offered me to become their next chief conductor. I would like to confirm that the publications are correct. This Wednesday the Munich City Council will vote on it, and then it should be an official announcement of the appeal, which will come into effect in the 2026/27 season.”
The city and the Philharmonic only say that the decision will be made on Wednesday. As the Southgerman newspaper knows from city council circles, there should be a table template. Christian Beuke, spokesman for the Philharmoniker, has announced a press conference in the City Hall Gallery for Wednesday at 10 a.m. The contract signing with the new chief conductor is also to take place on this day.
Almost a year after Valery Gergiev became unbearable for the Munich orchestra because of his closeness to Putin and has since waved his baton in national service for the Russian ruler, the search for a successor has come to an end. Even if the people of Munich will have to wait a few more years before the newcomer officially takes up the post.
Apparently they didn’t have the courage for “unconventional experiments”.
Lahav Shani, who lives in Berlin and was promoted by Daniel Barenboim, only jumped onto the candidate carousel at a late stage, at least in the eyes of the public. Other names were traded hotter: including the Briton Daniel Harding, the Finns Susanna Mälkki and Klaus Mäkelä, the Lithuanian Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the Italians Lorenzo Viotti and Daniele Gatti or the Pole Krzysztof Urbański, who is extremely popular with the Munich public.
There were also considerations of “unconventional experiments” (cultural consultant Anton Biebl) such as a dual leadership in the orchestra, or to overturn the chief conductor model as outdated. But in the end the courage was probably missing. So it stays with an orchestra leader, and that is once again a man.
After all, Lahav Shani, born in Tel Aviv in 1989, would probably be the youngest chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic for more than a hundred years, only the Finn Georg Schnéevoigt was also in his thirties when he led the orchestra (then called the Kaim Orchestra) from 1905 to 1908 led.
Despite his young age, Shani is very familiar with the demands placed on the leader of a top orchestra. In 2018 he was appointed conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, also becoming the youngest person to hold this position in the orchestra’s history. As Dutch media reports, he intends to continue in this position until the end of the 2025/26 season.
However, he also wants to hold on to his job as chief conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Since the 2020/21 season, he has been leading the renowned orchestra in his hometown as successor to Zubin Mehta. In the aforementioned letter to the orchestra musicians, Shani assures: “The Munich Philharmonic know and are happy that I will conduct both orchestras at the same time and have already brought up some ideas for a collaboration in the near future. I’ll be happy to tell you more about it when we see us in Israel.”
That would be exciting prospects for the Munich audience, who have so far had little opportunity to get to know Lahav Shani. In January you could see him in the Herkulessal at a concert conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He last conducted the Munich Philharmonic in March 2022 at a benefit concert for Ukraine.