Samuel Hogarth is 1st coordinated Kapellmeister (1. koordinierter Kapellmeister) at the Staatstheater Mainz, having been Kapellmeister from 2014 to 2025. In the current season he is conducting production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Kurt Weill’s classic piece Die Dreigroschenoper. Earlier in 2025 he conducted a production of Philip Venables’ acclaimed opera 4.48 Psychosis. All three of these productions were critically acclaimed, with reviewers praising the “astounding freshness” of the sound and describing the orchestra as “the trump card of the production”.
He also continues his extremely popular jazz series Sam Hogarth invites…, at the Kakadu Bar with a number of high-profile guests, including Tony Lakatos, Denis Gäbel and Shannon Barnett.
Samuel is managed by Beatrice Gilbert Artists Management.
Samuel grew up in north London, attending University College School and the Junior Royal Academy of Music. In 2001 he went up to New College, Oxford to read music. He graduated with a first class degree in 2004, taking the Gibbs Prize for the top result in his year.
He remained at New College for a further year to read for the M.St. in music, for which he was awarded a pass with distinction in 2005. During this year he pursued several of his research interests, writing a dissertation on Shostakovich’s Thirteenth String Quartet and also working on Brahms’ song Die Mainacht, the problem of the artwork (focusing on the work of Arthur Danto and Peter Kivy), the function of hermeneutics in vocal music (as explored by Roland Barthes), and the early history of the Oxford University Jazz Club.
From 2006 to 2008, Samuel was College Musician at Queens’, Cambridge. He conducted a production of his opera, David and Goliath, as well as several concerts with the St Margaret Society Chorus and Orchestra, the largest choral society in Cambridge. In collaboration with the college music society he worked to develop music in the college through a variety of concerts, masterclasses and workshops, including a highly popular series of jazz workshops working with everything from complete beginners to experienced performers.
From 2008 to 2009, Samuel studied on the National Opera Studio repetiteurs course, supported by Welsh National Opera, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund. He also continued to teach at the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department, giving classes in theory and supporting studies, teaching jazz piano/techniques and coaching chamber music.
From 2009 to 2011, Samuel lived in Cologne, where he was engaged in the Oper Köln as repetiteur and conductor. During this time he conducted several productions in the Kinderoper, including two world premieres, and worked as assistant and pianist for conductors including Markus Stenz, Lothar Koenigs and Markus Poschner.
From 2011 to 2014 Samuel worked as repetiteur and conductor at the Hamburg Staatsoper. In the 2012/13 season he conducted the first in a new series of contemporary opera productions in the Opera Stabile: I Am Your Opus, with music by Aribert Reimann. He was also commissioned by the Hamburg Staatsoper to write a children’s opera, Zwerg Nase, which had a premiere run of 16 performances in February 2014. While in Hamburg he worked as assistant and pianist for conductors including Simone Young, Sebastian Weigle, Stefan Soltesz, Marcus Bosch, Alexander Joel and Patrick Lange.
Since August 2014 Samuel has been Kapellmeister (staff conductor) at the Staatstheater Mainz, where he has conducted a range of opera and concert repertoire including La Bohème, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Dialogues des Carmélites, Carmina Burana, Spamalot, Gluck’s Armide and Cherubini’s Médée, as well as works including John Cage’s Atlas eclipticalis, Bach’s cantata no. 38, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, and a new children’s opera by the French-Lebanese composer Zad Moultaka, Hamed und Sharifa. He has also conducted at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern (Les Pêcheurs de Perles), Magdeburg Opera House (The Nutcracker, La Bohème) and Glyndebourne (preparatory workshops on Brett Dean’s newly-commissioned opera Hamlet with singers including Sir John Tomlinson and Allan Clayton). He returned to Glyndebourne in summer 2017 to assist Vladimir Jurowski on the world premiere production of Hamlet and conduct the cover cast. 2021/22 Samuel Hogarth took over the musical direction of the opera Pimpinone and the 1st concert for young people. In addition, he was mainly featured on the piano in his own work fish forward and the regular jazz evenings “Sam Hogarth invites…”, in the Kakadu-Bar Mainz. He has also conducted the operas Manon Lescaut, Der Freischütz, Victor/Victoria, Nabucco and Il Trionfo del Tempo.
In the 2022/23 season, he was seen in the revivals of his children’s opera fish forward, as well as Nabucco. He also conducted a new production of Sweeney Todd and a family concert.
In addition to his involvement with the various operas, he continued
his jazz evenings at the Kakadu-Bar Mainz. Samuel’s children’s opera
Zwerg Nase was featured in Boosey & Hawkes special edition Nota Bene
alongside other works for young audiences. In May/June 2023 he worked
for the first time at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, assisting
Vladimir Jurowski on a new production of Brett Dean’s Hamlet.
In the season 2023/24 Samuel Hogarth conducted the new production of Verdi’s Otello directed by Victoria Stevens, as well as productions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance by KD Schmidt and Leonard Evers’ opera for young people Humanoid. This was followed in the 2024/25 season by a new production of Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène and a revival of Bizet´s Carmen, as well as the aforementioned production of Venables´ 4.48 Psychosis and a family concert with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Mainz featuring Erika Le Roux as soloist in John Adams´ Piano Concerto “Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?”.