Canadian chef Jordan De Souza, born in Toronto and trained in Montreal, has been named Generalmusic director (“GMD” — General Director of Music) of the City of Dortmund, Germany. This title makes him responsible for the Opera, crowned “Best Opera in Germany” in 2022, and for the Symphony Orchestra, the Dortmunder Philharmoniker.
Jordan de Souza gleans this position the year of his 35th birthday, less than a month after his appearance at the head of the orchestra which had aroused enthusiasm in extracts from Porgy and Bess of Gershwin, The sea by Debussy and Couperin’s tomb by Ravel, during which he also conducted the members of the Czech Philharmonic Choir of Brno.
Jordan de Souza’s career has been firmly established in Europe for several years, from his appointment as principal conductor of the Berlin Comic Opera, where he worked between 2017 and 2020 alongside the sulphurous director Barrie Kosky at productions that have attracted strong attention.
In an interview in May 2022 at Duty, the one we have nicknamed since 2016 “the 100,000 volt gentleman of the classic” called to conduct in Germany, England and North America, wondered about his future: “I am at home in an opera house . Teamwork is very important, as is family life in a city without having to travel all the time. »
Married to soprano Jana Miller, father of two young children, Jordan de Souza has seven brothers and sisters. His parents, who came to Montreal from India in the 1970s, moved to Toronto in the 1980s, where he was born in 1988. Jordan then moved to Montreal at age 17 to train in music.
In May 2022, the Canadian conductor, who wanted to balance lyrical and symphonic repertoire, did not have words strong enough to praise the achievements of the experience of Kapellmeister, the one bringing conductors into the pit night after night to conduct operatic repertoire. It was, for decades, the natural path to stardom. Karajan was, at 27, the youngest GMD in Germany, Furtwängler was 29 when he was appointed to Mannheim. Karl Böhm got his job at 33 in Darmstadt…
In Dortmund, Jordan de Souza will notably succeed in history to Wilhelm Schüchter, Marek Janowski, Hans Wallat and Moshe Atzmon. He will be able to take advantage of a very remarkable room, the Konzerthaus, which was the first stop on the Orchester Métropolitain’s European tour in 2017 and will have to convert from hockey to soccer because Borussia Dortmund and their yellow jersey, eight times champion of ermany and major competitor of Bayern Munich, is an institution very comparable to the Canadians.
