Risto Joost
(c) Mait Jüriado
The 43-year-old Estonian Risto Joost has been named Chief Conductor of the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. He succeeds the Texan Case Scaglione, who is leaving the orchestra after six seasons.
Joost, born in 1980 in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, studied conducting, choir direction and chant at the Estonian Academy of Music in Tallinn and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In 2008 he graduated with honors from Jorma Panula at the Royal College of Music Stockholm. In 1999, Joost founded the chamber choir Voces Musicales (later Voces Tallinn) in his native Estonia. In 2017/18 he was Artistic Director of the Birgitta Opera Festival Tallinn. From 2015 to 2019, he was director of the MDR radio choir, the largest and oldest radio choir of the ARD. Since the 2020/21 season, Risto Joost has been the artistic director of Theater Vanemuine, a traditional three-genre theater in Tartu, Estonia’s second largest city.
