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Appearing

conductor / Matthias Bamert

piano / Gerhard Oppitz

Song List

© Y.Fujii

Matthias Bamert（conductor）

The Swiss conductor Matthias Bamert studied music in Darmstadt and Paris with Pierre Boulez and Stockhausen. He was principal oboist with the Salzburg Mozart Orchestra between 1965 to 1969, then switched to conducting. Matthias Bamert's distinguished career began in North America as an apprentice to George Szell, later as Assistant Conductor to Leopold Stokowski and Resident Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. He was Music Director of the Swiss Radio Orchestra (1977-1983), then began making a wider reputation across Europe. From 1985 to 1990, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra and Director of the Glasgow contemporary music festival Musica Nova, and premiered many works by Takemitsu, Casken, Macmillan and Rihm. He became famous for his creative programming as Director of the Lucerne Festival (1992-1998). Music Director of the London Mozart Players for seven years (1993-2000), Matthias Bamert masterminded a hugely successful series of recordings of works by "Contemporaries of Mozart". As part of their 50th Anniversary celebrations in 1999, he conducted the LMP at the BBC Proms and the Lucerne Festival. Matthias Bamert has also served as Principal Guest Conductor of New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (2000-2005), Associate Guest Conductor of Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (2003-2008), Principal Conductor of West Australian Symphony (2003-2007) and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (2005-2008). In 2017, he has been appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra. From April 2018 he holds a position of Chief Conductor of Sapporo Symphony Orchestra. Matthias Bamert has appeared with many of the great orchestras of the world, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Symphoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, etc. In Japan, he has conducted NHK Symphony Orchestra, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, and Gunma Symphony Orchestra. A prolific recording artist, Matthias Bamert has made over 80 CDs, many of which have won international prizes. His output includes 24 CDs of music by Mozart's contemporaries with the London Mozart Players, the complete symphonies of Parry and five CDs of works by Frank Martin with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the symphonies of Roberto Gerhard with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Dutch repertoire with the Residentie Orchestra and the Stokowski transcriptions as well as works by Korngold and Dohnanyi with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

© HT／PCM

Gerhard Oppitz（piano）

Born in Frauenau in 5, Gerhard Oppitz began playing the piano at the age of 1953. At the young age of 11, it is Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor with which he performs his first public concert – a drastic experience for the young Oppitz, sat among the listeners the Stuttgart music academy professor Paul Buck. While still at school, he opened up a place in his music class for the young Oppitz. In 1971 Oppitz was enrolled as a regular student in Stuttgart and moved to Munich in 1974 to attend Hugo Steuer's master class. After Gerhard Oppitz became the first German to win the renowned Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv just three years later, in which the 90-year-old Rubinstein himself was one of the jury members, Oppitz's international career took its course. Concert tours through the USA, Japan and Europe followed. In 1978, the pianist finally recorded his first record, which was followed by numerous other recordings and CD recordings. Another three years later, Oppitz took over the professorship at the Musikhochschule in Munich, which he retained until 2013. Important milestones in Oppitz's artistic career are numerous concerts in the world's most important music metropolises. As a soloist, he has performed with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Israel Philharmonic and the London Orchestras, the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the symphony orchestras of Detroit, San Francisco, Boston, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the orchestras of Paris and Munich. His artistic work is also characterized by his performance of complete cycles of works for solo piano, including Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, the sonatas of Schubert, Beethoven and Mozart as well as numerous compositions by Brahms. In 2009, Gerhard Oppitz was awarded the Brahms Prize of the Brahms Society Schleswig-Holstein – a prize that had been awarded to musical greats such as Leonard Bernstein and Lord Yehudi Menuhin. In 2014 he was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art: the highest award of the Free State of Bavaria. Here, too, Gerhard Oppitz follows in the footsteps of none other than Johannes Brahms. In addition, Gerhard Oppitz is an enthusiastic pilot who likes to get into the plane himself at his concerts and fly across Europe.　(From https://www.concerti.de/kuenstler/gerhard-oppitz/)