The conductor

Roberto Paternostro studied at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts under Hans Swarowsky, and in Hamburg under György Ligeti and Christoph von Dohnányi. He worked as Herbert von Karajan's assistant from 1978 to 1984.

Following that, he conducted at many of Europe's major opera houses. From 1997 to 2007, he was the general music director at the Staatstheater Kassel (Kassel State Theater), where he directed, among other things, new productions of works by Richard Wagner, including "Tristan and Isolde,“ "The Ring of the Nibelung," "Parsifal," "Tannhäuser," and "Lohengrin."

Roberto Paternostro has been the Israel Chamber Orchestra's artistic director since 2009 and music director since 2010. That orchestra's performance at the Bayreuth Festival, as initiated by Paternostro, and the planned performance of Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll" in Bayreuth in 2011 caused heated debate in Israel. Yet positive global media attention and the founding of the first Wagner Society in Israel were the result of Paternostro's efforts.

Roberto Paternostro received the ECHO Classic Award at the Konzerthaus Berlin in October 2012.