As a pianist, conductor and composer, Robert Lillinger (*1990) can look back on almost 20 years of activity with various orchestras and ensembles. He has worked, among others with the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt (2003), the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Cottbus State Theater (2007, 2008), the Philharmonic Orchestra from Zielona Góra (2007, 2008, 2012), the Orchestre Saint-Pierre Fusterie from Geneva (2008), the Mitteldeutsche Kammerphilharmonie (2009, 2012), the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra (2010-15), the Ensemble teatro barocco (2015), Les vents féeriques (2017), the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (2018), the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (2018), the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (2018), the Symphony Orchestra of the Schleswig-Holstein State Theater (since 2018) and the Symphonic Orchestra of the Detmold State Theater (2020/21).
Growing up in a small village on the edge of the Spreewald, Robert Lillinger received awards in piano and composition competitions as a child and teenager. At the age of 16, he began his piano studies at the Lausitz University of Applied Sciences in Cottbus. In the same year (2006) he played the acclaimed premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor with the Mitteldeutsche Kammerphilharmonie under the direction of Christian Simonis and made his conducting debut with the Brandenburg Chamber Orchestra Cottbus as part of the so-called Mozart Project. In 2008, the eighteen-year-old exceptional musician decided against a career as a piano soloist and moved to Vienna in favor of a versatile career as a musician, where he continued his academic studies with the subjects piano, conducting, musicology and historically informed performance practice at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw) as well as at the musicological institute of the University of Vienna. In addition, he completed master classes in Lied accompaniment with Irwin Gage and Walter Moore and sat in on courses with Daniel Barenboim, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, René Jacobs, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Sebastian Weigle, Franz Welser-Möst, and Helmut Zehetner, all of whom shaped his artistic approach.
During his studies Robert Lillinger received engagements as répétiteur, study leader and conductor at numerous festivals such as the Wiener Operettensommer, operklosterneuburg, teatro barocco, Tiroler Festspiele Erl and Salzburger Festspiele, in the course of which he gained a broad musical theater repertoire. He served as musical director in productions of W. A. Mozart's "Magic Flute," Albert Lortzing's "Tsar and Carpenter," Joseph Haydn's "Lo Speziale," Georg Anton Benda's melodrama "Medea," and Joseph Beer's operetta "Polish Wedding," which he reconstructed in 2012 for the Viennese music publisher Doblinger.
In 2017, Robert Lillinger initiated and directed the festival de la musique baroque française (femubaf), offering Viennese audiences discussion concerts on French baroque music, a staged production of André Campras tragédie lyrique "Idomenée" (1712) at the Schlosstheater Schönbrunn (directed by Reinhard Hauser), and a concert in honor of the composer Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre at the Palais Niederösterreich. In the 2017/18 season he served as orchestral pianist ("A Midsummer Night's Dream"), répétiteur and study leader ("Arianna in Nasso," "Pelléas et Mélisande," "Don Pasquale") and assistant conductor to Laurence Cummings ("Saul," Freiburg Baroque Orchestra) at the Theater an der Wien. In 2018, he accepted an invitation as ballet and solo répétiteur with conducting duties at the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landestheater. His own productions at the house include the ballet "Peer Gynt", various children's and youth symphony concerts as well as the New Year's Concert 2023 "Wiener Schmankerl und Schmäh"; in addition, he conducted performances of e.g. "Taming of the Shrew", "Swan Lake", "Singin' in the Rain" or "Xerxes".
Collaborations with directors and choreographers such as Tobias Kratzer, Andy Halwaxx, Patricia Nessy, Isabella Gregor, Lydia Steier or Claus Guth as well as with singers and actors such as Jasmina Sakr, Heidi Brunner, Cornelia Horak, Anna Prohaska, Florian Boesch, Piotr Beczała or Bruno Ganz significantly influenced his music theater practice. In 2022 he participated as a fortepiano player (scenically on stage) in the celebrated production "La gazza ladra" (staging: Tobias Kratzer, musical direction: Antonino Fogliani) at the Theater an der Wien.
In addition to his extensive theater and concert activities, Robert Lillinger has devoted himself increasingly to composing during his time in Flensburg. Thus, in addition to songs, piano and chamber music works, two commissioned compositions for the Landestheater Detmold (2020/21 and 2021/22) have been written in recent years, as well as the symphonic works "Symphonie caractéristique" (2019), "Akhenaten" (2020), "Die Regentrude" (2021) and "Hero und Leander" (2022); the latter was heard in excerpts as part of the youth symphony concert "Die Moldau oder: Wie klingt Wasser" in the spring of 2022 at the Schleswig-Holstein Landestheater, conducted by the composer.