Conductor Kai Röhrig studied at the Cologne University of Music and at the Mozarteum University in the class of Michael Gielen, and also regularly attended summer courses with Rolf Liebermann. He is a prizewinner of the International Mozarteum Foundation, which awarded him the “Bernhard Paumgartner Medal”. He worked as a musical assistant at the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals. As a protégé of Bernard Haitink, he was engaged by the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and the Concertgebouw Orkest in Amsterdam. For several years he worked as assistant to Pierre Boulez with various orchestras in Salzburg, Vienna and Paris.

After working as a conductor, Kai Röhrig was music director of the Salzburg State Theater for several years. He has also appeared as a guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Hanover State Opera, the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich and the Innsbruck Landestheater. As part of the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010 festival, he conducted a production of Hans Werner Henze's opera “Das Wundertheater”. At the Salzburg Festival, he conducted opera productions of The Magic Flute, The Abduction from the Seraglio and La Cenerentola as part of the Young Singers Project.

Prof. Kai Röhrig has been teaching in the Department of Opera and Music Theater at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg since 2014 and has conducted numerous opera productions here since then.

Concerts have taken Kai Röhrig to the podium of many renowned symphony orchestras, including the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Academy Orchestra of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Korean KBS Symphony Orchestra, the Slovenian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic Orchestra and the Nuremberg and Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestras. He made his debut at the Berlin Philharmonie conducting the Deutsches Sinfonie Orchester. In his debut at the Tonhalle-Zurich, he conducted works by Frank Martin and Dmitri Shostakovich. At the Brucknerhaus in Linz, he conducted works by Alban Berg and Paul Hindemith.

Recent guest appearances have taken him to the Radiokulturhaus in Vienna, the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Patenkirchen, the Salzburg Mozart Week 2024, the Aspekte Festival and the La Chigiana Festival in Siena, with which he has worked closely for many years.

Upcoming performances include a production of J. Strauss' Fledermaus at the new Bergson-Kunstkraftwerk in Munich, a concert performance of the opera Salome as part of the Richard Strauss Festival 2026 in Garmisch-Patenkirchen and the opening concert of the “La Chigiana” Festival 2026 with the Wesendonck-Lieder by Richard Wagner and the Requiem by Hans Werner Henze.

The chamber ensemble Salzburg Orchestra Soloists was founded in 2005 by the percussionist Andreas Steiner. Its players come from the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and from other traditional Austrian and German orchestras.

At the heart of the group's artistic work are symphonic pieces from the Classical and Romantic periods, and the Salzburg Orchestra Soloists are also dedicated to performing 20^th-century repertory. The ensemble is especially focussed on performing compositions by members of the International Society for New Music (IGNM), founded in 1922 for the promotion and presentation of contemporary music.

The ensemble’s characteristic feature is that it performs orchestral and ensemble music in the original instrumentation as well as in arrangements, in a soloistic formation, without a conductor. Through the intensive collaboration of its highly qualified musicians, the ensemble has found a special sound with which it has quickly made a name for itself beyond its native country’s borders. Since 2007 the Salzburg Orchestra Soloists have been regular guests in international concert series and at festivals throughout Europe. In 2013 the ensemble made its debut at the Salzburg Festival, and since then it has regularly accompanied the children’s operas in the Festival’s jung & jeder series. In 2014 and 2018 the ensemble undertook extensive concert tours to Korea.

The Salzburg Orchestra Soloists' CD recordings - both live and from the studio - have received great critical acclaim from the specialist press.