B i o g r a p h y
Maayan Franco is an Israeli-German Conductor residing in Berlin.
As part of his vast repertoire outreach, Franco divides his time between Opera, new music, and concert programming.
Franco made his BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra debut in April of 2023 in which “The BBC SSO strings gave a searingly intense account under conductor Maayan Franco, who captured the piece’s big emotions in expansive yet precise gestures” (The Scotsman). He also recently took part as the Lucerne Festival conducting fellow where he conducted the LFCO and was invited to debut with Ensemble Modern at Oper Frankfurt for their “Happy New Ears” series in February 2022. Franco works regularly with Ensemble Meitar and Ensemble 21 featuring exciting new programs and returns annually to the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra working on masterpieces such as Dvorak's 9th Symphony 'from the New World', Franck's Symphony in D, and this season is due to perform Brahms Symphony no. 1.
In the field of Opera Franco's repertoire scopes from early operatic pieces to new staged works. During the Summer of 2020, he conducted two new productions at the Jerusalem Lyric Opera Festival: Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, He was invited again to conduct the new productions of Mozart’s Die Zauberflote and Rusalka by Dvorak in the following seasons. As an assistant and cover conductor, Franco worked on staged works at Festival d’Aix En Provence, Staatsoper Berlin, The Israeli Opera, Konzerthoaus Wien, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Barbican Center London, Stuttgart Staatsoper and many more.
Since 2017 Franco had the privilege of working closely with conductor Ilan Volkov. Being only 20 years old, Franco prepared the ORF - Radio Symphonieorchester Wien on the Opera ‘The Outcast’ by Olga Neuwirt in Vienna, as well as conducting the off-stage music at the BBC Proms 2018 festival in London’s Royal Albert Hall for Straus’s An Alpine Symphony and Mozart’s Nocturno for 4 orchestras. Franco also worked with Volkov on projects with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Ensemble InterContemporain, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Berlin Staatskapelle and many more.
Franco started his musical education at the age of 5 beginning with percussion under Mr. Alex Nemirovsky from the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and Flute under Prof. Ruthi Ron. Maayan studied at the “Thelma Yelin” School of the Arts in Tel Aviv.
As a flute player Maayan played in many highly respected venues around the world such as the Berlin Philharmonie kammermusiksaal and San Jose Theater in California. Maayan received awards and scholarships from the Hava Stern Foundation, the Ronen Foundation, and an honorable diploma from the American Israel Cultural Foundation (AICF).