Gustav Meier

Gustav Meier ( born 1929 ) is a Swiss conductor and music teacher.

Life

Meier studied at the Zurich Conservatory and at the Academia Chigiana Siena. 1957-58 he attended the master classes for conductors together with Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta and David Zinman at Tanglewood. He began his career as a conductor at the Lucerne Opera and then conducted at the Vienna Chamber Opera and the Zurich Opera.

From 1960 to 1973 he was professor of music at Yale University. Then he taught until 1976 at the Eastman School of Music. From 1980 to 1996 he headed the conductor Seminars at Tanglewood. In 1988 he was awarded the Louise Vosgerchian Teaching Award from Harvard University. Among his students, inter alia, Marin Alsop, Antonio Pappano, Bobby McFerrin, Yakov Kreizberg, Rico Saccani, Carl St. Clair, Bundit Ungrangsee, Mark Gibson, Jun Märkl and Benjamin Loeb.

Meyer is the conductor of the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra in Michigan and the Greater Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut. He also appeared on various orchestras in the United States, Latin America and Europe as a guest conductor. He conducted the first performance of compositions by Robert Carls, Elliott Carter, Kurt Weill, Hugo Weisgalls, James Mulcro Drews and Thomas Fay. In 1995 he received the Ditson Conductor's Award from Columbia University for his contributions to American music. In 2009 he published his book, The Score, the Orchestra, and the Conductor.