Zdeněk Mácal

Zdeněk Mácal ( born January 8, 1936 in Brno ) is a Czech conductor.

Biography

Zdeněk Mácal studied conducting at the Conservatory and then at the Janáček Academy of Music in Brno. He gained international attention when he won the 1964 later Dimitri Mitropoulos Competition in New - York the Conducting Competition of Besançon and a year.

Mácal left Czechoslovakia in 1968 after the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops and found his first job as chief conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of the WDR Cologne ( 1970-1974 ). Later, he was also chief conductor and music director of the NDR Radio Philharmonic Hannover, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (1986-1995) and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra ( 1993-2002). In addition, he was director of the Chicago Grant Park Summer Festival. In 1986 he was appointed chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, this contract was canceled in 1987 after conflicts with musicians and the management again.

From 2003 to September 2007 was Zdeněk Mácal chief conductor of the renowned Czech Philharmonic, but officially joined because of bad reviews on the feature pages due to conservative program selection, from this post back. In the years before his career focused primarily on the United States, where he stood on the podium all major orchestras. Overall, Zdeněk Mácal conducted more than 160 orchestras on four continents, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, all the major London orchestras, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio.

2006 Mácal had a cameo appearance in the Japanese series Nodame Cantabile Drama, where he played the childhood mentor of the main character, the conductor Sebastiano Vieira.