Artists biographies
Herbert Blomstedt

Herbert Blomstedt, born in the USA as the son of Swedish parents, had his first musical training at the Royal Conservatoire in Stockholm and the university of Uppsala. Later he studied conducting at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, contemporary music in Darmstadt, and Renaissance and Baroque music at the Schola Cantorum in Basel. He also worked under Igor Markevitch in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein in Tanglewood.

In February 1954 he made his first appearance as a conductor with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and, a little later, became the chief conductor of such major Scandinavian orchestras as the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Danish and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the latter until 1983. From 1975 to 1985, he was chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, from 1985 to 1995 Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. From 1996 to 1998 was chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, and from 1998 to 2005 he was the eighteenth Gewandhauskapellmeister in Leipzig. He is still an honorary conductor with many of these orchestras, while guest engagements take him to the leading orchestras worldwide. A late ‘debut’ brought him together with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2011; this collaboration will be continued with a tour in July 2012, and with concerts in Vienna in October 2013.

Herbert Blomstedt has recorded more than 130 works with the Staatskapelle Dresden, including all the symphonies of Beethoven and Schubert, and all the orchestra works of Carl Nielsen with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the context of an exclusive contract with DECCA, he made numerous award-winning recordings with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra which have become standard interpretations, including the complete symphonies of Nielsen and Sibelius.

His association with the Gewandhausorchester was documented by various labels. DECCA released CDs with works by Brahms, Bruckner, Hindemith, Mendelssohn and Strauss. One might also mention the ‘High Mass’ by Sven-David Sandström (Deutsche Grammophon) and Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’ (RCA) RCA Red Seal. The label querstand released a CD box set with live recordings of concerts in Leipzig dating from 1998 to 2005; in the context of a planned recording of Bruckner’s complete symphonies, nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8 are already available, while nos. 3 and 4 are due for release in the coming season.

Herbert Blomstedt, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2007, is an elected member of the Royal Swedish Musical Academy, and holds honorary doctorates from a number of universities. In 2003 German President Johannes Rau awarded him the ‘Grosse Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’.