Mladen Bašić
Mladen Bašić ( born August 1, 1917 in Zagreb, † November 21, 2012 ) was a Yugoslav or Croatian pianist and conductor.
Life and career
Mladen Bašić studied piano, conducting and composition at the Music Academy in Zagreb. His musical career began in 1940 first as a coach and since 1945 as conductor of the Opera of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb ( 1955-1958, he worked as an opera director ). In 1959 he was invited as an opera director at the Salzburg local theater and a year later engaged in Salzburg as chief conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra. From 1962 to 1972 he was a regular guest conductor at the famous Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. 1967 and 1968 Bašić was appointed principal conductor at the Frankfurt Opera. From 1968 to 1970 he had returned to his homeland, this time as music director of the Summer Festival " Split ljeto " and as an opera director of the Croatian National Theatre in Split. From 1970 to 1978 he was permanent conductor and program director of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, where he had closely and very successfully worked with the then principal conductor Lovro von Matačić. In 1978 he was invited to Mainz, where he served as general music director until 1990.
As an orchestral conductor Mladen Bašić occurred in many European concert halls. His most accurate reading of the score and very careful preparation of each performance made his musical interpretations always stylistically refined and rich in content. Special recognition he deserved for the many premieres of works by contemporary Croatian composers - such as, for example, for the premiere of the scenic oratorio Marulova pisan by Boris Papandopulo. Respectful, who did much in his homeland for the first performances of the world's well-known works by Maurice Ravel, Benjamin Britten, Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky, Florent Schmitt and Béla Bartók.