Praised for his scintillating, authentic and inclusive approach to conducting, and driven entirely by the music, Petr Popelka is Chief Conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker, and Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.

To inaugurate his tenure in Vienna at the start of the 2024/25 season, Popelka led a performance of Arnold Schönberg's "Gurre-Lieder" at the Vienna Musikverein in celebration of the composer’s 150th anniversary. Later in the season, Popelka and the Wiener Symphoniker embark on tours across Europe and Asia alongside numerous engagements at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Musikverein. Under the name "Primavera da Vienna", they will also launch a new Easter Festival in Trieste.

Further highlights this season include Popelka’s debuts with the Tonhalleorchester Zürich and NHK Symphony Orchestra, as well as returns to the Staatskapelle Berlin, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester, Bamberg Symphony and Danish National Symphony. Popelka recently led two prestigious TV concerts - the Czech Philharmonic’s Velvet Revolution concert and the Nobel Prize Concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra – and as this season’s curator of the Czech Chamber Music Society in Prague, he also appears as composer, double bass player and pianist.

A passionate opera conductor, Popelka is set to wrap up his three-season “Tristan und Isolde” project with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducting the third act of Wagner's music drama. Following this, he will conduct the full opera at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Petr Popelka embarked on his conducting career as the inaugural Conductor Fellow of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in 2019. A year later, he became Chief Conductor with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra in Oslo. Popelka received his musical training in his home city of Prague and in Freiburg and continues to compose alongside conducting. From 2010-2019, he was deputy principal double bassist of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden.