Biography - English
“…the ensembles and the orchestral colours… blossomed with even greater nuance under Killian Farrell. With him, the flood of sound became a lucid seascape that one hopes will finally be included in the general repertoire in the future.”
Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung, November 2024 (The Wreckers, Staatstheater Meiningen)
Described as ‘a firework of drama and poetry’ by Neue Musikzeitung, conductor Killian Farrell, Generalmusikdirektor at Staatstheater Meiningen, began his career at Theater Bremen, serving as First Kapellmeister and conducting a range of repertoire including new productions of Die Zauberflöte and Wolfgang Rihm’s Jakob Lenz, alongside performances of Der Rosenkavalier, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Alcina, Rusalka, and Fidelio. Farrell also held the position of First Kapellmeister at Staatsoper Stuttgart, where he conducted works including Monteverdi’s Orfeo and Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges.
The upcoming season brings Farrell to Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Oper am Rhein for productions of Dido and Aeneas & The Lighthouse, among other engagements. In the opera house, he conducts the Meininger Hofkapelle in productions of The Wreckers (the German premiere of its unabridged original version), Don Carlos, Tristan und Isolde and Don Giovanni.
The 2023/24 season took Farrell to the Stuttgarter Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden, Irish National Opera, and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, and included concert engagements with National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, and Georgian Chamber Orchestra.
Farrell served as a Conducting Fellow at Tanglewood Music Centre in 2019, conducting their orchestra and receiving guidance from conductors such as Andris Nelsons, Thomas Adés, and Giancarlo Guerrero. He is a former Young Artist at the National Opera Studio, a Britten-Pears Young Artist, and an alumnus of the prestigious Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. A former member of the German Conductors’ Forum, he was awarded a scholarship from the Bryden Thomson Trust.
Farrell comes from Dublin, Ireland, and is a former Deputy Head Chorister of Dublin’s Palestrina Choir. He made his professional conducting debut at 17 with Bach’s St.John Passion. He studied conducting, piano, and organ at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama and read musicology at Trinity College Dublin.