Dr Markus Fein has served as Intendant and Chief Executive of the Alte Oper Frankfurt since September 2020. Under his leadership, the concert hall and congress centre has broadened its appeal to a wide audience and the city’s diverse communities through the introduction of new festivals, participatory formats and expanded music outreach programmes. Among the initiatives he has launched is the Fratopia Festival, which offers free admission and creates new pathways to experiencing music, as well as a range of innovative formats at the intersection of performance, dialogue and social exchange.
Born in Frankfurt in 1971, Markus Fein completed his secondary education in Munich before studying Applied Cultural Studies, Musicology and Art History in Lueneburg, Hamburg and Vienna. He subsequently earned a doctorate in Musicology from the University of Hamburg.Before joining the Alte Oper Frankfurt, he served from 2013 as Executive Director of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, one of Germany’s largest classical music festivals, presenting concerts at around 80 venues across the region. Prior to that, he directed both the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker and the Niedersächsische Musiktage, shaping their artistic profiles through innovative programming and cross-disciplinary approaches.
Markus Fein also gained extensive experience in the concert hall sector at the Berlin Philharmonic, where he first worked as Artistic Adviser and later as Head of Programme Planning and Dramaturgy. In this capacity, he collaborated closely with Sir Simon Rattle on season planning and the development of new concert formats.
Music outreach and audience engagement have been central to his work for many years. Through initiatives such as 2 x Hören (“Listening Twice”), the Mittendrin concert series and the Hörer-Akademie (“Listeners’ Academy”), he has developed innovative concert formats that offer fresh perspectives on classical music and foster direct engagement with audiences. Alongside his work as an arts leader, Markus Fein is an active lecturer and mentor. He has taught subjects including concert dramaturgy and cultural management at the Universities of Lüneburg and Hamburg, and since 2008 has served as a coach for Concerto 21, the masterclass programme of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation. His publications include the monograph Im Sog der Klänge: Gespräche mit dem Komponisten Jörg Widmann (Drawn into the World of Sound: Conversations with the Composer Jörg Widmann, 2005). Markus Fein also serves on expert juries and advisory bodies, including the music jury of the Capital Cultural Fund (Hauptstadtkulturfonds) and the Lower Saxony Music Commission. He is a member of the Supervisory Board of the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.
(05 / 2026)
