Since his debut with Britten’s Albert Herring in 1995 at the Schwetzinger Festspiele, Olaf Storbeck has established himself as a versatile conductor, with positions as Kapellmeister at Theater Heidelberg and the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, as well as at the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, where he was also Assistant Musical Director.  As a guest conductor, he has conducted orchestras in Dessau, Rudolstadt, Regensburg, Osnabrück, Bonn, Mannheim, Dortmund and Karlsruhe.

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As a representative of the German Kapellmeister tradition, Olaf Storbeck has conducted over forty operas in all styles. The main body of these works has included Tannhäuser, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, Wozzeck, Il Trovatore, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, as well as all the standard Mozart operas. In 2005 he conducted the première of Rossinis Otello at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, which started a revival of the piece across Europe. This production also marked the beginning of his collaboration with Peter Berne, one of the last assistants of renowned bel canto coach Luigi Ricci.

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Equally at home with modern opera, Olaf Storbeck has worked with composers such as Hans Zender (Don Quixote) and Maurizio Kagel for a production of Aus Deutschland, which was considered by the composer as a benchmark production for German theatres. 

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As assistant of Reinhard Goebel, founder and leader of Musica Antiqua Köln, Olaf Storbeck conducted the world première of Veracini’s As You Like It. Productions at the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar include Galuppi’s Il mondo alla roversa, Purcell’s The Fairy Queen and Caccini’s

I disingannati. Continuing to specialize in Baroque opera, he had particular success with Vivaldi’s Il Giustino at Staatstheater Oldenburg.

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Since 2007 he has been engaged as Professor for Opera Studies at the Musikhochschule Zürich and since 2008 he has been the Music Director of Lyric Opera Studio Weimar, which offers an intense and challenging program for emerging singers, répétiteurs and conductors, providing a bridge to entering the German market.

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Olaf Storbeck began his musical career in piano studies in Stuttgart, with Prof. Paul Buck, teacher of Gerard Oppitz and Hartmut Höll. Further studies in piano and orchestral conducting included such teachers as György Sebök, Jürgen Uhde, Marcello Viotti, Marek Janowski and Frieder Bernius.

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As a result of his lifelong work with choirs and opera choruses, in 2018 Maestro Storbeck founded the Weimarer Vokalensemble.

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In 2019 he was again invited to conduct the Staatskapelle Weimar for a staged dance production of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps.