Jun Märkl took up his position as Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lyon at the start of the 2005/6 season, coinciding with the orchestra's centennial celebrations. His plans there for the next few seasons include international tours, recordings, and an exploration of the music of Liszt and Messiaen.
In 2007/8 he will become Musical and Artistic Director of the MDR Sinfonie Orchester (Leipzig Radio Symphony), to complement his activities in Lyon.

Mr Märkl is also a popular guest conductor with many of Europes's leading symphonic orchestras. In his native Germany he has conducted the Bavarian State Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Berliner Staatskapelle and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin (with whom he has recorded for the Capriccio label), NDR (Hamburg), WDR (Cologne), MDR (Leipzig), and Bamberg Symphony orchestras. Prior to his assuming the musical directorship in Lyon, he was a regular guest in France with two of Paris' leading orchestras, the Orchestre de Paris, and the l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and has conducted leading orchestras in Scandinavian (Danish Radio,Stockholm,Helsinki), the Netherlands (Rotterdam and Netherlands Philharmonic), and the UK (English Chamber Orchestra,Birmingham), to name a few.

Mr Märkl made his North American debut in 1998 with the Dallas Symphony, where he has since become a regular guest. Within a short time, he was engaged to appear with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia (summer 2000) and returned to Chicago for his subscription debut one year later. Since then, he has conducted many of North America's top orchestras including t,hose of Boston, Minnesota, the St. Louis, Baltimore, Montreal, Toronto, Seattle, Atlanta, Detroit and maintains continuing relationships with several of them.


Mr. Märkl conducts the NHK Symphony in Tokyo every season - for multiple weeks and multiple programs - and appears over the NHK radio and television networks. This season he leads three weeks of programming, and will record the complete symphonies of Robert Schumann, for EXTON Records. He conducted a new production of Das Rheingold at Tokyo's New National Theatre in March 2001 with the Tokyo Philharmonic, launching Japan's first-ever complete "Ring" cycle that concluded with acclaimed performances of Götterdämmerung with the NHK Symphony in 2004. He has also appeared at the Pacific Music Festival and with the Mito Chamber Orchestra.

Permanent Conductor of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Mr. Märkl has long been an annual guest at the Berlin and Vienna State Operas (since his debut in 1993 with Tosca) and the Dresden Semperoper. He conducted a complete Ring Cycle at the Deutsche Oper, and made his Royal Opera House debut with Götterdämmerung in 1996. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera with Il Trovatore in 1998-9 and returned for La Traviata in 2000-1. This season he conducts a new production of Weber's Euryanthe and performances of Turandot and Parsifal in Dresden, and in Munich he leads The Cunning Little Vixen, Pique Dame, and The Bartered Bride.

Born in Munich into a musical family - his father was Concertmaster of several distinguished German orchestras, and his Japanese mother was a solo pianist -- Jun Märkl studied violin, piano and conducting at the Musikhochschule in Hannover. He pursued further studies with Sergiu Celibidache in Munich and with Gustav Meier at the University of Michigan. In 1986 he won the conducting competition of the Deutsche Musikrat and the next year he won a scholarship from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to study at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. He quickly entered the professional conducting world and had a string of appointments in opera houses, beginning with Lucerne, Bern and Darmstadt, followed by his first music directorship at the Staatstheater in Saarbrücken (1991-94), and his appointment as both Music and Artistic Director of the Mannheim Nationaltheater (1994-2000).


Mr. Märkl records for the Capriccio label and has recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra and Sarah Chang for EMI. His NHK Tokyo recordings are distributed by Altus and Exton Records.