Michael Gielen
The son of the opera director Josef Gielen, Michael Gielen was born in Dresden in 1927. He started his musical career as a répétiteur at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, where his parents had emigrated. In 1951, he returned to Europe and became a conductor and répétiteur at the Vienna State Opera. Early on in his career, he developed an interest in contemporary music and became famous for his outstanding performances of the works of Viennese Classicism and the works by Bruckner and Mahler. From 1960 to 1965, Michael Gielen worked as the director of Music of the Royal Opera in Stockholm. In 1969, he was appointed head of the Belgian National Orchestra in Brussels. He has conducted in all the major music centres in Europe and is linked in special association with the radio orchestras in Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt/Main and Vienna.
From 1973 to 1976, Michael Gielen was the Director of Music of the Netherlands Opera, from 1976 to 1986 Artistic Director and Director General of music of Frankfurt Opera, from 1978 to 1981 Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, from 1980 to 1986 head of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and became Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Südwestfunk (1986- 1999). Michael Gielen has also conducted regularly at the State Opera Unter den Linden; he was Principal Guest Conductor of the State Orchestra in Berlin. Michael Gielen’s work at Frankfurt Opera became famous for many artistically daring and sometimes controversial productions.
After his debut with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the US in 1971, he was invited to Detroit, Houston, Seattle and Cincinnati and has been a regular guest at the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has also held concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra in the Festival Hall in Baden-Baden and performances with the Orchestre de Paris.
Like Gustav Mahler, Bruno Maderna and Pierre Boulez, Michael Gielen cultivated both, conducting and composing, which allows him profound insight into the music by contemporary composers. Frequently, he has conducted the world premieres of major works of the 20th century, e.g. Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s opera Die Soldaten or György Ligeti’s Requiem. Amongst Michael Gielen’s many recordings, a production of Schoenberg’s Moses and Aaron must be stressed. A Michael Gielen Edition containing on 90 CDs his SWR recordings was published by the Label SWRmusic. For his services as a conductor, Michael Gielen was awarded the Cannes Classical Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002. His autobiography Absolutely Music was published in 2008.
