To print this page, choose print from the file menu. ......

Matthias Bamert, conductor

Short Biography

Conductor Matthias Bamert will be Associate Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from September 2001. He was Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra and Director of the Glasgow contemporary music festival Musica Nova from 1985-90. Director of the Luzern Festival 1992-98, he was responsible for the opening of a new concert hall, instituted a new Easter Festival and piano festival, and vastly increased the festival’s activities.

Music Director of the London Mozart Players for seven years, he has masterminded a series of recordings of works by "Contemporaries of Mozart" (over 50 symphonies). In the Summer of 1999 he took the orchestra to the BBC Proms, to Vienna and to the Luzern Festival, with a return tour of Japan in January 2000. He also works regularly with The Philharmonia, The London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, and appears annually at the London Proms.

Bamert spends several weeks of every season in North America (Los Angeles Philharmonic, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Houston, Montreal). He goes to the NHK Symphony later this season, and is a regular guest in Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Perth), New Zealand and Hong Kong. He has conducted orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Cologne Radio, Oslo Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Barcelona Opera. Forthcoming European engagements include the Berlin Symphony, St Petersburg Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic.

Born in Switzerland, and Music Director of the Swiss Radio Orchestra in Basel from 1977-1983, he has been resident in London since 1987. However his conducting career began in North America as an apprentice to George Szell and later as Assistant Conductor to Leopold Stokowski, and Resident Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel.

Bamert has made over 50 discs, many of them with Chandos Records, including repertoire as diverse as Mozart’s contemporaries, Parry symphonies, Frank Martin, Roberto Gerhard, 19th century Dutch composers, Korngold, Dohnanyi and Stokowski transcriptions of Bach, Mussorgsky and Wagner.

March 2001/350 words

Not to be altered or shortened without permission of Intermusica. Please destroy all previous biographical material.