In the recent past Johannes Witt debuted at Wiener Staatsoper, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Finnish National Opera, Nowegian National Opera and Ballet and Oper Wuppertal.
With the beginning of the season 2021/22 Johannes took up a position as conductor for the Oper Wuppertal. Highlights of his schedule there are the German premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino's »Il canto s'attrista, perché?«, the premieres of »La Traviata«, »Werther« and »The Pirates of Penzance« as well as performances of »Rigoletto«, »Die Lustige Witwe« and »Die Zauberflöte«. In the years before he was conductor for the Aalto Theater in Essen, where he conducted a broad repertoire including new productions and revivals of »Die Zauberflöte«, »Die Csárdásfürstin«, »Il Barbiere di Siviglia«, »Norma«, »Das Land des Lächelns«, »The Bartered Bride«, »Hänsel und Gretel«, »Così fan tutte«, »Il Trovatore«, »Die Fledermaus«, »Cain, overo il primo omicidio«, »Orfeo ed Euridice« as well as the ballets »Romeo and Juliet«, »The Nutcracker«, »Giselle«, »The Sleeping Beauty«, »Onegin«, »Swan Lake«, »Don Quichote« and »Carmen / Bolero«.

He conducted the Aalto Theater premieres of »Onegin«, »Swan Lake« and »Eine Nacht in Venedig«, all highly praised by press and audience alike:

»(...) Last but not least, there is a special praise from the critic (which was confirmed at the end by the audience's sudden standing ovations) for the highly talented man in front of the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra, namely Johannes Witt, who, like in »The Nutcracker«, entertained superbly with a rubato-full Tchaikovsky interpretation. An exceptional conductor who one should keep an eye on (...)«

(Alviano Salvago, DER OPERNFREUND, 29.01.2018)

In 2021 Johannes returned to Staatstheater Stuttgart and Aalto Theater Essen to conduct John Cranko's »Taming of the Shrew« as well as the revival of Dietrich Hilsdorfs acclaimed production of »Cain, overo il primo omicidio« in Essen.
Other guest engagements have led him to the Nationaltheater Mannheim (»Don Giovanni«), the Bonn Opera House (»Madama Butterfly«), the Staatstheater Kassel (»Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor«) and the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern (German premiere of the chamber opera »Heart Sutra« by Christian Jost and the monodrama »The Raven« by Toshio Hosakawa). In 2016 Johannes conducted a critically acclaimed premiere of Prokofiev's »Romeo and Juliet« at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville.

Johannes has worked with orchestras such as the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Essen Philharmonic, the Duisburg Philharmonic, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra, the Staatsorchester Kassel, the Orchestra of the Nationaltheater Mannheim, the Bergische Symphoniker, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla a.o.

He began his professional career as a coach at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. In 2012 Stefan Soltész brought him to the Aalto Theater Essen as a coach and conductor. Here he worked closely with Stefan Soltész as his assistant in productions of »Pelléas et Mélisande«, »Ariadne auf Naxos« and »Parsifal«. He assisted conductors such as Tomáš Netopil, Friedrich Haider, Martyn Brabbins, Dima Slobodeniouk, Giuliano Carella and Will Humburg, the latter for a production of “Die tote Stadt” at the Teatro Massimo di Palermo.

Johannes studied conducting in Cologne with Professor Michael Luig at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and in in St. Petersburg with Loenid Korchmar of the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatory St. Petersburg.

Johannes is a trained percussionist. Before conducting, he specialized on the marimba as a soloist in recitals and in concerts with orchestra. Johannes' passion for orchestral music and for the powerful sensation of collective music making has its roots in his many years as timpanist in the youth orchestras of Toronto and Cologne.

As Artistic Director of the Landesjugendorchester Hamburg, a position he took up in 2020, Johannes shares his passion for music with highly talented young musicians. He hopes to be a source of inspiration for these future colleagues of his and that their time in a youth orchestra has a similarly meaningful impact on their lives as it did on his.