Gérard Korsten was born in South Africa and studied violin in Johannesburg and Cleveland, at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia under Ivan Galamian and at the Mozarteum Salzburg under Sándor Végh. During this period he was concertmaster of Camerata Academica Salzburg as well as assistant to Sándor Végh. After taking up conducting, he won first prize in the South African Radio conducting competition in 1980. He is a regular guest conductor at Cape Town Opera and of the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra. From 1987 to 1996 he was leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Among the orchestras he has conducted are the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg, the Hallé Orchestra Manchester, the German Chamber Philharmonic, the Camerata Salzburg, the Mozart Orchestra of Bologna and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. In 1995 he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival. This was followed by further concerts at the Wiener Festwochen, the Berlin Festwochen as well as the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg. From 1997 to 1998 he was music director of Pretoria Opera House. From 1999-2005 he was artistic director of the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari (Sardinia), where he conducted the first performance in Italy of Richard Strauss's opera Die ägyptische Helena in a production that was released on DVD. As a guest conductor he has appeared at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Teatro alla Scala in Milan among other notable venues. He has worked very closely with the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, the Glyndebourne Festival (Albert Herring), English National Opera and Opéra de Lyon (Siegfried, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Lustige Witwe, La traviata). Since autumn 2005 he has been chief conductor of Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra and music director of the highly respected London Mozart Players since 2011.