Albert Horne


Albert Horne is a South African-born orchestral conductor and chorus master, whose focus is opera chorus preparation and operatic performances. He worked for the Cape Town Opera and has been chorus master and conductor at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden from 2014.

Career

Born in South Africa, Horne studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He was the Chorus Master and Conductor of the Cape Town Opera from 2007 to 2014. In 2013, the chorus was awarded “Opera Chorus of the Year” at the International Opera Awards in London.
In 2012, Horne prepared the chorus for Simon Rattle's concert performances of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Philharmonie with the Berlin Philharmonic. He has conducted orchestras such as the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Victoria in Melbourne, the Hessisches Staatsorchester in Wiesbaden and the Orchestre Pasdeloup in Paris. He also conducted in Bordeaux, Cardiff, Malmö, Tel Aviv and at London's ENO. In a performance of the Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden, he conducted Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the chorus of the Cape Town Opera and the orchestra of the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden in a production which was regarded as one of the best contributions of the year's festival because of its authenticity.
Horne has been chorus master and conductor at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden since the start of the 2014/15 season, where he is responsible for the preparation of the chorus, and also conducted productions of Bernstein's Candide, Puccini's Madama Butterfly and La Bohème, as well as Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. In 2017, he conducted and also prepared the chorus for Britten's Peter Grimes, staged by Philipp M. Krenn. He also conducted the World Premiere of Søren Nils Eichberg's new opera, Schönerland, the Wiesbaden premiere of Tim Plegge's ballet Liliom with the , as well as a Symphony Concert with the Hessisches Staatsorchester. In 2018 he also conducted the on tour in Germany, South Africa and Botswana. This season, he returns to the podium to conduct Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole and the revival of Britten's Peter Grimes in Wiesbaden, an orchestral concert with the , as well as several concerts with the Münchner Symphoniker in the Philharmonie am Gasteig and the Prinzregententheater in Munich. He has performed as vocal accompanist in various concert halls in Europe, South Africa, USA and Australia, with recent performances at the Helsingborg Konserthus and at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional d'Aubervilliers in Paris.