Biography
Tobias Wolff studied music at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1995 to 1998, and viola at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf. He gained initial professional job experience at the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. Since 2002 Tobias Wolff has been living in Leipzig, where he initially worked as a freelance musician, concert promoter and music journalist, e.g. for the Leipziger Volkszeitung and MDR Kultur. In 2006, Tobias Wolff joined the Theater Altenburg-Gera as Chief Dramaturg and Marketing Manager. For the 2010/11 season, he took over the management of the five-branch theatre as Administrative Director and successful crisis manager. He concurrently completed an MBA at HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management in 2011, and in the same year was appointed Managing Director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival, one of the world's longest-standing festivals for baroque music. The cultural manager re-positioned the festival internationally, introduced unconventional formats, and strategically promoted young talent and music education – receiving e.g. no less than two Helpmann Awards, the Music Education Award of the State of Lower Saxony, and EU funding for the eeemerging scholarship programme, which he co-initiated. In the Covid year 2020, Tobias Wolff was engaged in cultural politics as co-founder and spokesman of the Forum Musik Festival, an alliance of over 100 festival organisations throughout Germany.
On August 1, 2022, Tobias Wolff took over the post of the artistic director of Leipzig Opera House. He opened his first season with »Future: Now!«, an open-air spectacle in cooperation with Theater Titanick with the participation of over 220 children and students from Leipzig. Together with his management team, he initiated a consistent course of sustainability that has been awarded, among other things, funding from the Fonds Zero of the Federal Cultural Foundation, the Next Stage Grant of the Fedora network and the eku - Zukunftspreis 2023 of the Free State of Saxony. Oper Leipzig is the pilot institution of a climate calculator specially developed for the cultural sector, an innovation project of the cities of Leipzig and Dresden. Together with the National Opera of Iceland, Oper Leipzig is investigating the life cycle of costumes in the Sustainable Costumes project and will present its first climate-neutral opera production in December 2023 with Mary Queen of Scots. Oper Leipzig is currently striving for a DIN 20121 certification for its entire operations.