Michael Gielen

Michael Gielen was born on 20 July 1927 in Dresden and died on 8 March 2019 in Mondsee. In 1940 the family emigrated to Buenos Aires, where he studied piano and music theory with Erwin Leuchter; he continued his composition studies with Josef Polnauer in Vienna. Early posts were the Teatro Colon as repetiteur and the Wiener Staatsoper as repetiteur and kapellmeister. He was principal conductor of the Royal Opera Stockholm (1960–1965) and of the Belgian National Orchestra (1969–1973), general music director of the Oper Frankfurt (1977–1987), director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1980–1986) and principal conductor of the SWF and later SWR-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden (1986–1999). In 1965 he conducted the first performance of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s “Die Soldaten” in Cologne. From 1987 to 1995 he was professor of conducting at the Mozarteum Salzburg. He received the Theodor-W.-Adorno-Preis in 1986 and the Ernst von Siemens Musikpreis in 2010, among others, and also came to prominence with compositions of his own. He is represented as a performer on the Cybele album Portrait Günther Becker (1998).