Christoph Eschenbach

Christoph Eschenbach ( born February 20, 1940 in Breslau) is a German pianist and conductor.

Life

Career as a pianist

Christoph Eschenbach is the son of Wroclaw musicologist Heribert ring man. His mother died in childbirth. His father was transferred as an opponent of Nazism in the Second World War in a probation battalion, in which he fell. His grandmother took care of him until she herself died from the effects of the run. A cousin of his mother, Wallydore Eschenbach, finally took care of him from 1946. As a pianist she discovered Christopher's interest in music and taught him from 1948 to 1959 in piano playing. Your name adopted Christoph. Even as a ten year old, he won the first prize at the Hamburg Steinway Competition. He made in 1959 in Aachen on Einhard Gymnasium graduated from high school. He then studied at the Musikhochschule in Cologne with Hans -Otto Schmidt -Neuhaus. Back in Hamburg, he studied at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg with Eliza Hansen and piano with Wilhelm Brückner - Rüggeberg conducting. After he was awarded a prize at the ARD Competition in 1962 and won the 1965 Clara Haskil Competition in Lucerne, he began his international career as a pianist in 1966 with appearances in London and 1969 in the U.S.. A lasting, sustainable artistic collaboration linked him with both Herbert von Karajan as well as with George Szell.

Eschenbach also devoted himself intensively to the song accompaniment and chamber music, especially with the Houston Symphony Chamber Players, founded by him. With his former Hamburg fellow Justus Frantz and Tzimon Barto, he played piano music for four hands or two pianos. Popularity gained his recordings of concertos for multiple pianos by Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach with Justus Frantz and Helmut Schmidt as piano accompanist. 2012 Eschenbach Residence artists at the Philharmonie Essen.

Career as a conductor

1972 Eschenbach debuted as a conductor with a performance of the Symphony No. 3 by Anton Bruckner in Hamburg. Should be conducting the focus of his work on this soon. So Eschenbach was in the years 1979-1981 Music Director of the State Philharmonic of the Rhineland -Palatinate in Ludwigshafen and from 1982 to 1985 chief conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. 1988 to 1999 he was head of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, whose honorary conductor ( Conductor Laureate ) he is today. From 1995 to 2003, Christoph Eschenbach, Music Director of the Ravinia Festival, the summer festival ( summer residence ) of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. From 1998 to 2004 he was the head of the NDR Symphony Orchestra; 1999 to 2002 he also served as Artistic Director of the Schleswig- Holstein Music Festival. He then took over from 2003 to 2008 as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the line was at the same time from 2000 to 2010 Director of the Orchestre de Paris musical. With the 2010/11 season Christoph Eschenbach took over as artistic director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC and its venue John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He also pursues an active international guest conductor activity. For the best classic collection program, he received a Grammy in 2014.

Mentor

Among his mentors as a conductor Christoph Eschenbach is one of the lasting impact of years of collaboration with Herbert von Karajan and George Szell. He has also tried to musical education. He counts among others on his website the pianist Tzimon Barto and Lang Lang, violinist Julia Fischer and singer Renée Fleming to his protégés.

Christoph Eschenbach, since 2003, musical director of the Orchestra Academy of the Schleswig -Holstein Music Festival, an international orchestra of music students from around the world, with whom he lists every summer symphony and chamber concerts and tours extensively on the circumstances.

Repertoire

The piano repertoire as a conductor Christoph Eschenbach ranges from the Baroque to the present. Pianistically he is known in particular for his Schubert and Mozart recordings, the latter often together with Justus Frantz, with whom he had met on the common teacher Eliza Hansen. He is also active as an accompanist, as with Dietrich Fischer -Dieskau, with whom he released a recording of the complete songs of Robert Schumann, or with Matthias Görne.

In 1968, Eschenbach brought in Bielefeld the second piano concerto by Hans Werner Henze for the premiere, which he had dedicated to him.

Later Eschenbach renounced pianistic solo performances and often occurs since with Tzimon Barto in a duo and still as an accompanist on.

Christoph Eschenbach conducts both concert and operatic repertoire and strives to provide performances and premieres of contemporary composers.

His discography (LP and CD) as a pianist and conductor, is rich and varied and reflects his artistic range.

Awards

• Grammy 2014: in the category " Best Classical Compendium " ( Hindemith: Violin Concerto - Symphonic Metamorphosis - concert music op 50)

Movie Documentary

• Christoph Eschenbach. Portrait of the pianist. German TV documentary by Florian Furtwängler, ZDF in 1977, about 50 minutes