SPONSORED: CD Spotlight. Pure Magic - James Brawn's continued Beethoven Odyssey, awaited by Andrew Schartmann.
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VIDEO INTERVIEW: Ona Jarmalavičiūtė talks to American choral conductor Donald Nally, director of The Crossing, in this fascinating, illustrated, one hour programme.
RECENT: Find out about composers from unusual places, including Gerard Schurmann, Giya Kancheli, Nazib Zhiganov and Nodar Gabunia, about singing in cars, and meet Jim Hutton from the RLPO and some of our regular contributors in this eighty-minute February 2021 video.
German conductor Christian Thielemann was born on 1 April 1959 in Berlin, where he studied at the Hochschule für Musik and also learnt composition and conducting privately. At nineteen he became repetiteur at Deutsche Oper Berlin, working with Heinrich Hollreiser and Herbert von Karajan.
He worked at several smaller German theatres and assisted Daniel Barenboim at Bayreuth, returning to Deutsche Oper Berlin to conduct Lohengrin in 1991. This was followed by Elektra in San Francisco and engagements at New York Metropolitan Opera.
He was general music director of Deutsche Opera Berlin from 1997 until 2004, and was principal conductor and music director of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra from 2004 until 2011. In 2012 he became chief conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle.
Thielemann has denied the anti-semitic remarks regarding Daniel Barenboim which were attributed to him in 2000.
Drastically Revised - Giuseppe Pennisi looks at the detail of the replanned 2020 Salzburg Festival
Jerome Rose - In the build-up to New York's International Keyboard Institute and Festival, Richard Meszto writes about the festival's founder
Triumph and smiles - Tess Crebbin was at the Echo Classics Awards in Munich