Kai­ Tie­tje

As a conductor of renowned orchestras, a musical director at the piano, an adapter and arranger of operettas, musicals, and songs, and a developer of new works, Kai Tietje has been active in the field of light music for many years. He has written numerous orchestral arrangements and new adaptations, both for his own productions and for institutions such as the Volksoper Wien, the Theater Basel, the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, and the Staatsoper Hannover.

Kai Tietje completed his conducting studies in Düsseldorf in 1999 “with distinction,” having previously earned a degree there as a sound and video engineer. Between 2002 and 2008, he was at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, most recently serving as coordinating principal conductor for numerous productions of operas and musicals (including Der Barbier von Sevilla, Die Fledermaus, Crazy For You, Strike Up The Band, Anything Goes, The Life, Fame). There he also staged the premiere of the Schalke musical nullvier – keiner kommt an Gott vorbei. During the 2008/09 season, in addition to his work as music director and rehearsal director at Theater Nordhausen, he directed the musicals Silk Stockings and Sweet Charity at the Staatstheater Nürnberg, Evita at Theater Dortmund, and South Pacific at the Staatstheater Kassel.

In 2010, he moved to the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien (Ich war noch niemals in New York, Tanz der Vampire, Sister Act). In 2012, he directed the musical Anatevka at the Bad Hersfeld Festival as well as Sunset Boulevard in Hof.

From 2012 to 2015, he served as music director and artistic director of the new musical division at the Landestheater Linz, where he was responsible for the musical direction of all new productions during that time (Hexen von Eastwick, The Wiz, Next to Normal, Showboat, Les Misérables, Company, Tommy…).

In 2015, he developed the musical Io senza te for Theater 11 in Zurich together with Stefan Huber and Domenico Blass; in 2016, he created a new version of the operetta Axel an der Himmelstür for the Volksoper Wien with Peter Lund; and in 2017, he staged the evening program Eine kleine Sehnsucht at the Staatsoper Berlin. In 2018, the Casinotheater Winterthur presented his own special adaptation of Die Fledermaus featuring the Pfister siblings and Stefan Kurt, once again in collaboration with Stefan Huber.