A Swiss–Albanian conductor born in Boston, he completed his studies in composition and piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music while also earning a degree in Biology at Oberlin College. He went on to receive a full scholarship to Harvard University, where he earned a doctorate in composition.

He began a long-standing collaboration with the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires after his acclaimed performances of Alban Berg’s Lulu. He served as its Music Director from 2005 to 2008, chosen by the resident orchestra—a tradition shared with figures such as Fritz Busch and Erich Kleiber. He returned in 2010 with a double bill of Korngold’s Violanta and Zemlinsky’s Eine florentinische Tragödie.

He has conducted opera at houses such as the Semperoper Dresden (L’Upupa, Boris Godunov, Dead Man Walking), Hamburg State Opera (Turandot, Tosca), Gothenburg Opera (Tristan und Isolde), Slovak National Opera, Prague State Opera, as well as productions of Porgy and Bess and West Side Story in the United States and Europe. On the concert stage he has worked with orchestras in Montreal, Zagreb, Tirana, Madrid, São Paulo, Tokyo, Mexico City, Singapore, and Basel, with Sinfonia Varsovia, and at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra.

He began his career as a pianist at the Graz Opera and later at the Vienna State Opera. He was the solo pianist in the premieres of Berio’s Un re in ascolto under Lorin Maazel, who subsequently appointed him Associate Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. In 1997 he made his conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera with The Rake’s Progress and was later invited by San Francisco Opera (LULU) and again by the Met (Moses und Aron by Schoenberg).

Awarded two OPUS Prizes for Best Concert of the Season with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, he has also conducted world premieres such as Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner and Mark Adamo’s Lysistrata.

He composed and conducted incidental music for November 1918 in Weimar and has premiered his own works with orchestras in Argentina and Lithuania. His catalogue includes three symphonies, orchestral and vocal works. This coming November he will perform his Piano Concerto No. 2 for the first time in Vilnius.

His music is published by Musikverlag Ries & Erler (Berlin). He resides in Basel with his wife.