Tomáš Hanus
Principal Guest Conductor
Conductor Tomáš Hanus is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra during the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons.
Tomáš Hanus is Music Director of the Welsh National Opera, a position he has held sincethe 2016/17 season. He has conducted many renowned orchestras across Europe, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin, and the Dresden Staatskapelle, among others. He has frequently conducted at the Vienna State Opera and led opera performances at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Paris Opera, and, most recently, made his debut at La Scala in Milan.
Since his October 2017 triumphant debut at the Vienna State Opera (Rusalka), Tomáš Hanus has pursued his conducting commitments there on a regular basis (Eugene Onegin, Hänsel und Gretel, Jenůfa), apart from also regularly conducting new productions at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (where he debuted in 2009, with Jenůfa). Munich 2014 production of the Markopulos Affair used his critical edition of the Bärenreiter score. He repeatedly returned to Opéra National de Paris (where he debuted in 2007, with The Makropulos Affair). June 2023 saw his debut at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, with a new production of Rusalka, and in November 2026 Tomáš Hanus made a debut at the Metropolitan Opera. Other opera houses with which he has been associated include the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen, Madrid's Teatro Real, Opéra National de Lyon, National Theatre Tokyo and others. In 2001 he made his debut at the National Theatre in Prague, with Smetana's The Devil's Wall, stage-directed by David Pountney, and in 2008 he directed that company's new production of The Makropulos Affair, stage-directed by Christopher Alden. Between 2007 and 2009, he was the music director of the National Theatre Brno.
As a part of his tenure at the WNO Orchestra, Tomáš Hanus also engages his forces in a busy schedule of concert appearances across the United Kingdom. Other orchestras he has worked with include the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Dresden Staatskapelle, SWR Finfonieorchester Baden-Baden, MDR Leipzig, Stuttgart Opera Orchestra, Bremen Philharmonic, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Camerata Salzburg, the Czech Philharmonic, the Brno Philharmonic, the PKF – Prague Philharmonia (with which he made his Prague Spring debut in 1996), or the Prague Symphony Orchestra (with which he made a recording of Viktor Ullmann's symphonies) and the Festival Orchestra at the Mostly Mozart Festival New York, among others. In 2023 Tomáš Hanus presented Smetana's Má vlast at the Prague Spring Opening Concert. The performance received rave reviews which applauded also to WNO Orchestra as a first opera orchestra to have ever opened the festival.