Leonard David Wacker (*1998) is a German conductor, awarded third prize at the conducting competition of Juventudes Musicales de España.
Highlights of the 2025/26 season include his participation in the Contemporary Conducting Program at the Lucerne Festival, a return invitation to the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, and his operatic debut conducting Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Opéra Angers-Nantes with the Orchestre des Pays de la Loire.
Assistantships, both in symphonic and in operatic repertoire, have taken him to the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Düsseldorfer and Duisburger Philharmoniker, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, and the national youth orchestras of Saxony, Bavaria, Berlin, and Hesse. As a guest conductor, he has led, among others, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, the Orquesta de Castilla y León, and the Wiesbaden Symphony Orchestra. He also gained extensive experience with various orchestras in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Spain as part of his training.
Leonard has a particular interest in the music of the 20th century as well as the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries. In 2019, he founded Ensemble Anthème, with which he performs Baroque cantatas and motets. In his programming, he is particularly concerned with revealing historical and stylistic connections between musical works.
Leonard Wacker grew up in Jerusalem, Mexico City, and Berlin. He first studied violin at the Universität der Künste Berlin before pursuing conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar with Prof. Nicolás Pasquet and Prof. Ekhart Wycik. A semester abroad took him to the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, where he studied with Prof. Ole Kristian Ruud and Rolf Gupta.
He is currently completing his studies at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid, where he studies with Prof. Nicolás Pasquet, Jordi Francés, and Miguel Ángel Cañamero. In parallel, he is pursuing studies in philosophy and musicology at the Humboldt University in Berlin.
