Born in 1981 in Be’er Sheva (Israel), Omer Meir Wellber began his musical education at the age of five with accordion and piano. From 2000 to 2008 he studied conducting and composition with Eugene Zirlin and Mendi Rodan at the Jerusalem Music Academy on a scholarship from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation before heading to the Berliner Staatsoper and Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, where he assisted Daniel Barenboim from 2008 to 2010. From then until 2014 he served as Music Director at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia (Valencia). Omer has held the positions of Principal Guest Conductor at the Semperoper Dresden since 2018, Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic since 2019, and Music Director of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo since 2020. From September 2022 he takes on the role of Music Director at the Volksoper Wien, working with director Lotte de Beer.

Omer has conducted some of the world’s most prestigious ensembles, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Tonhalle Orchester Zürich.

Besides his musical creativity, Omer’s everyday life is influenced by a wide variety of interests—he speaks five languages (including German, Italian, English and Russian), and is an advocate of seeing music as a vehicle for social change, not only in Israel with his Raanana Symphonette Orchestra, but also with the BBC Philharmonic and the Teatro Massimo. He also gives masterclasses in Manchester, Dresden and Palermo, and at the Jerusalem Academy. Omer is a Good Will Ambassador for Save A Child’s Heart, an Israel-based non-profit organization that provides critical cardiac medical support.

In 2019 Omer showed another side of his broad artistic range by making a literary debut with his first novel, Die vier Ohnmachten des Chaim Birkner, published by Berlin Verlag. The book tells the story of Chaim Birkner, a tired and broken man who is forced by his daughter to face life one last time. In 2021 the novel was published in Italian by Sellerio Editore.