George Alexander Albrecht
George Alexander Albrecht (born 15 February 1935 and Leuchtenburg ) is a German conductor.
Life
Albrecht - doctor's son Carl Albrecht - is a great-grandson of the Bremen big merchant Baron Ludwig Knoop, younger brother of the politician Ernst Albrecht and father of conductor Marc Albrecht and Uncle Vereidigungsministerin the Federal Republic of Germany, Ursula von der Leyen.
He studied violin, piano and composition, and received in 1954 the "Prix d'excellence " of the Accademia Chigiana in Siena / Italy. At 29, he was appointed in 1965 to the General Music Director of the Lower Saxony Hannover State Opera and as the youngest GMD in Germany. He was, inter alia, in the course of his career Guest conductor of the Berlin and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He conducted all German Radio Orchestra and was in many foreign orchestras at the podium, including the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Paris, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Radio Orchestra Turin, Milan and Rome. Opera and concert guest appearances took him to Bologna, Barcelona, Madrid, Trieste, Turin, Venice, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, at the Zurich Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Musikverein in Vienna, the Salzburg Festival and Carnegie Hall in New York. In February 1992, he debuted in Japan with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. After 32 successful years, Albrecht left at the end of 1992/ 93, the Hanover Opera, to devote himself increasingly guest conductor.
Albrecht was awarded the Order of Merit in 1998.
Guest performances
From 1990 to 1995 Albrecht was a guest conductor at the Semperoper Dresden and Leipzig led in 1994 in the new production of the opera Moses und Aron by Arnold Schoenberg. An Honorary Professorship connects him to the Academy of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar. Among his students the conductors Volkher Häusler and Michael Mader.
As music director of the German National Theatre Weimar and the Staatskapelle Weimar, he undertook concert tours since 1996, inter alia, to Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, Antwerp, Luxembourg and Japan.
On one of his last visit Travel (Fall 2004) he conducted the Staatskapelle Weimar Wilhelm Furtwängler symphonic concerto for piano and orchestra, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in Germany and Austria. His CD recordings with this traditional German orchestra are specifically focused on written for Weimar works by Liszt, Wagner, Strauss and Humperdinck.
Particular highlights among the many guest appearances, which took Albrecht, introduced in the 2003/2004 season the baton of Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra at the New Zealand International Festival, and the rehearsals of Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman at the Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne dar. For this project he received in 2005 the Conductors Award in the category of opera by Australian critics Award Green Room Award.
Artistic meaning
Albrechts opera and concert repertoire is wide-ranging. One focus is the New Music occupy what numerous premieres and exemplary rehearsals (eg Reimann Troades, carpenter The soldiers, Schoenberg's Moses und Aron ).
In addition to the musical-dramatic work of Mozart and Wagner, the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler are another focus in Albrecht's work. He received the Gustav Mahler Gold Medal, among other things for his performance of Mahler's complete works in 1985 and wrote the extensive work of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. Again and again he advocates rarely performed works such as by Hans Pfitzner, about which he also conducted research scientifically and The Symphonic work Pfitzner wrote, Erwin Schulhoff, Allan Pettersson, and last but not least, Wilhelm Furtwängler, whose symphonies he is currently edited as president of the association Wilhelm Furtwängler total output. There appeared three CDs containing the entire symphonies Furtwängler with the Staatskapelle Weimar.
Volunteering
Albrecht is committed to ehrematlich in hospice work.