studied piano and conducting at the conservatories of Cologne and Düsseldorf. As a pianist he won several international competitions for chamber music and performed regularly as a concert soloist until he exclusively concentrated on conducting. Subsequent to master classes of Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache, John Eliot Gardiner and various stops at theatres (Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and theatres in Basel and Lübeck) as a répétiteur and principal conductor, Rüdiger Bohn worked with important symphony orchestras in Germany and abroad. His repertoire includes works from the early classical period until the modern era.

From 1997–2007 Rüdiger Bohn was the artistic director of the Contemporary Opera in Berlin, thus extending his interest in contemporary music. Prestigious ensembles, such as Klangforum Wien, the Collegium Novum Zurich and the Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik invited him as a guest conductor. Since 2009 he has worked closely with the Ensemble musikFabrik in Cologne. He has conducted at many national and international festivals; representative examples are the Salzburg Festival, Summer Courses in Darmstadt, Munich Biennale and the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music. He has always been passionate about collaboration with composers, who include Beat Furrer, Toshio Hosokawa, Isabel Mundry, Wolfgang Rihm, José María Sánchez-Verdù and Hans Zender.

He has regularly accepted invitations from ensembles and orchestras to Korea (i.a. Tongyeong International Music Festival, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra) and Japan (Next Mushroom Promotion Ensemble, Takefu International Festival). Recently Rüdiger Bohn led the world premiere of Sarah Nemtsov’s piece L’absence within the Munich Biennale. In 2013 he will conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

Since 2003 Rüdiger Bohn has been the artistic director of the European Workshop for Contemporary Music. He holds the post of professor of conducting at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf.