Catherine Rückwardt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Catherine Rückwardt (born Beckmann ; born April 7, 1960 in Los Angeles , United States ) is a German conductor .

Life

Catherine Rückwardt was born in Los Angeles as the daughter of the conductor and pianist Irving Beckmann (1922–2018) and the opera singer Judith Beckmann . Her parents moved with her to Germany in the 1960s and settled in Hamburg . She began her training in 1975 as a young student at the Lübeck University of Music in the violin class with Friedrich Wührer, a son of the pianist of the same name . In 1981 she moved to the Hamburg University of Music and Theater , where she studied piano and has already been given a teaching position. In addition, from this time on, she also studied viola ,Song accompaniment - with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hermann Prey - as well as conducting .

After graduating in 1984, she started as a répétiteur at the Bremen Theater and made her debut there in 1985 as a conductor with Carl Zeller's operetta Der Vogelhandel . From 1989 she worked in Bremen as a conductor and director of studies . In 1995 she supplemented her training with a conducting course with Helmuth Rilling at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart . In the same year she conducted the world premiere of Detlev Glanert's chamber opera trilogy Drei Wasserspiele in Bremen , with which she received national attention for the first time.

In 1997 she became the first woman at a major German opera house to take on the post of first conductor at the Frankfurt Opera for four years . There she stood u. a. 1999 at the podium at Wolfgang Rihm's chamber opera Jakob Lenz , a work that she had already directed in Bremen.

In 2001 Catherine Rückwardt became General Music Director of the Philharmonic Orchestra at the Mainz State Theater . At that time there were only a few female conductors in leading positions in opera houses and orchestras, among them were Rückwardt and her generation colleagues such as Romely Pfund , Sian Edwards , Marie-Jeanne Dufour, Julia Jones and Simone Young . As a conductor for operas and concerts in Mainz, she presented a spectrum in her early years that ranged from Handel's Saul to Wagner's Lohengrin and Britten's Peter Grimes to works of contemporary music such as Peter Ruzicka's opera Celan . In addition, she was committed to expanding the area for children and young people as well as to music education projects . When the responsible ministry was planning a merger of the Mainz and Ludwigshafen orchestras in 2003 , Rückwardt's efforts succeeded in preventing this.

In 2006 she also became the artistic director of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Mainz, which was separated from the Theater-GmbH, in addition to her function as general music director. She worked in both offices until 2011. During her time there she expanded the usual repertoire with rediscoveries. a. the 1st symphony by Hans Rott , the music for orchestra by Rudi Stephan or the opera Tiefland by Eugen d'Albert , directed by Katharina Wagner . Typical of her handwriting was the selection of works from her 2011 Mainz Farewell Concert, in which she combined Brahms ' 4th Symphony with Schönberg's accompanying music to a light play scene (1930) and with the violin concerto (1925) by Russian avant-garde artist Nikolai Roslawez , a work whose score was not published until 1989 had been rediscovered.

Your guest performance includes u. a. the Staatstheater Darmstadt , the Staatstheater Braunschweig , the Ensemble Modern , the Bremen Philharmonic , the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra , the Duisburg Philharmonic , the Württemberg Philharmonic, and conducts in Rotterdam and Antwerp . In 2004 she made her US debut with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and in 2008 she conducted the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra for the first time .

She has been working as a freelance conductor since 2011. Occasionally she also appears as a pianist and singer with chansons by Georg Kreisler and miniatures by Fritz Kreisler .

Awards

  • 1999: Zonta Art Prize
  • 2011: Gutenberg bust of the city of Mainz

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Catherine Rückwardt. In: Klassik.com . November 5, 2009 .;
  2. ↑ a b c d Catherine Rückwardt. In: European female conductors. 2002 .;
  3. ↑ Detlev Glanert: "Drei Wasserspiele" premiered 1995. In: Boosey & Hawkes .
  4. ↑ a b "The boys share the cake among themselves": The conductor Catherine Rückwardt. In: crescendo . April 1999 .;
  5. ↑ Staatstheater Mainz: seasons 2001 to 2011 with Operone
  6. ^ Orchestra structural reform in Rhineland-Palatinate. In: German Music Information Center . September 11, 2003 .;
  7. ↑ Harald Budweg: Exhibition and dissolution. In: FAZ . January 2, 2006 .;
  8. ↑ a b c Catherine Rückwardt. In: Theaterfreunde Mainz. 2020 .;
  9. ↑ The conductor leaves the Philharmonic State Orchestra Mainz. In: Der Tagesspiegel . November 5, 2009 .;
  10. ↑ Harald Budweg: Mainz and the consequences: Catherine Rückwardt's commitment to Hans Rott draws circles. In: FAZ. November 15, 2004 .;
  11. ↑ Andreas Hauff: Hochlandbrand instead of Götterdämmerung: Katharina Wagner discovers her great-grandfather in d'Albert's "Tiefland". In: Neue Musikzeitung. March 30, 2011 .;
  12. ↑ Andreas Hauff: Ten years as general music director in Mainz: Catherine Rückwardt says goodbye. In: Neue Musikzeitung . September 28, 2011 .;
  13. ^ Short biography of Catherine Rückwardt. In: fmb university competition. 2014 .;
  14. ↑ Rückwardt receives the city's second highest award. In: Rhein-Zeitung . June 23, 2011 .;
personal data
SURNAME Backward, Catherine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beckmann, Catherine (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH los Angeles