Christoph von Dohnányi

Christoph von Dohnányi ( German: [ dona ː ni ], Hungarian: [ doxna ː nji ] ) ( born September 8, 1929 in Berlin ) is a German conductor and artistic director.

Life

Dohnányi was born the son of a lawyer and later resistance fighter Hans von Dohnanyi and Bonhoeffer Christine, sister of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Berlin. He attended the Thomas School in Leipzig, where he was a member of the St. Thomas Boys', the Benedictine High School Ettal and the Victoria -Gymnasium Potsdam. He first studied with his brother law at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich, then switched to composition, piano and conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. He was then trained with his grandfather Ernst von Dohnányi, at Florida State University and with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood.

He struck deals by Bernstein in New York and László Halász out in Hollywood. Instead, he returned to Germany and in 1953 assistant to Georg Solti at the Frankfurt Opera. At 27, he was appointed the youngest music director in Germany at Theater Lübeck. From 1963 to 1966 he was Music Director of the Staatstheater Kassel. From 1964 to 1969 he headed the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. Since 1968 he was music director and since 1972 also director of the Frankfurt Opera and the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra. From 1977 to 1984 he worked as a director of the Hamburg State Opera and Music Director of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. From 1982 to 1984, appointed by Dohnányi Music Director Designate of the Cleveland Orchestra, whose music director he was from 1984 to 2002. In 1997, the appeal succeeded to the position of Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London (until 2008, since then honorary conductor ). From 1998 to 2000 he was principal conductor of the Orchestre de Paris. From September 2004 to the end of the 2011 he was chief conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra. In the same year he returned to the United States back and since then has conducted subscription concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Work

Dohnányi is especially the new music at heart, so he brought, inter alia, Hans Werner Henze's The Young Lord (1965) and The Bassariden (1966 ) and Friedrich Cerha Baal (1981 ) premiered.

Even as a mentor has excelled von Dohnányi. Alan Gilbert, current chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, was Dohnányi's assistant with the Cleveland Orchestra by 1995 to 1997. Jens Georg Bachmann, Music Director of the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado, USA, was the NDR Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2009 in the same position.

Family

→ See also: Dohnányi

Christoph von Dohnányi is married to third wife, Barbara Koller. He was first married to actress Renate Zillessen and then with singer Anja Silja. He has five children. His son from his first marriage, Justus von Dohnányi ( born 1960 ) is an actor. His brother is the politician Klaus von Dohnanyi.

Awards

Dohnányi 's Commandeur de l' Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, winner of the Bartók Prize ( Hungary), the Goethe Medal (Frankfurt), of the Hamburg Art and Science Prize and the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Great Silver Medal for Meritorious Service to the Republic of Austria (1992). He also holds honorary doctorates from the Kent State University, Case Western Reserve University, Oberlin College, the Eastman School of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music.