Kaspar Zehnder

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Kaspar Zehnder (born August 27, 1970 in Riggisberg ) is a Swiss conductor and flautist .

education

Kaspar Zehnder attended the Neufeld grammar school in Bern . He then studied at the Conservatory (today Bern University of the Arts ). He graduated with a concert diploma for flute (with Heidi Indermühle ) and for conducting (with Ewald Körner ). Further teachers were Agathe Rytz-Jaggi (piano), Peter Streiff and Arthur Furer ( music theory ). He describes the conductors Ralf Weikert , Charles Dutoit , Werner Andreas Albert and Horst Stein and the flautist Aurèle Nicolet as important initiators of his early career .

Career

Zehnder gained his first experience as a conductor with the Neufeld Bern Chamber Orchestra (which emerged from students at the Neufeld Gymnasium), the Burgdorf BE Chamber Orchestra and the Bern University of the Arts orchestra (conducted from 1997 to 2006). A first highlight was the artistic direction of the Murten Classics summer festival in Murten , which he took over in 1999. Appointments to foreign orchestras followed in 2002 (first permanent guest conductor of the Philharmonic in Sibiu , until 2007) and 2005 (chief conductor of the Prague Chamber Philharmonic ( Pražská komorní filharmonie ), until 2008). Since then he has appeared regularly as a guest conductor with orchestras, especially in Eastern Europe (e.g. Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania), France and Switzerland. From 2004 to 2012 Zehnder was musical director at the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern and still performs as a flautist with the Ensemble Paul Klee today. In addition to his solo appearances as a flautist, he regularly appears with the ensemble 'mit vier'. Zehnder has been chief conductor of the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra since 2012 and also acts as director of concerts.

Zehnder works with soloists such as Patricia Kopatchinskaja , Magdalena Kožená , Judith Jáuregui , Natalia Gutman , Viviane Chassot , Rachel Harnisch , Radek Baborák , Jiří Bárta , Jana Boušková , Bruno Ganz , Viviane Hagner , Konstantin Lifschitz , Sergei Khachatryan , Isabelle van Keulen , Marianne Pousseur or Antoine Tamestit together.

repertoire

Zehnder's repertoire includes orchestral works with a focus on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Antonín Dvořák , Willy Burkhard , Frank Martin , Bohuslav Martinů , Johann Sebastian Bach , Georg Friedrich Handel , Ludwig van Beethoven , Joseph Haydn , Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Camille Saint-Saëns , Pjotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , Benjamin Britten .

In the field of opera, Zehnder has conducted the following works in recent years: Carmen 2010 Murten Classics , Les Contes d'Hoffmann 2011 in Paris, Le nozze di Figaro 2011 at the Lithuanian National Opera and The Diary of Anne Frank 2011 at the Paul Klee Center in Bern. For the 25th anniversary of Murten Classics 2013, a semi-staged production of Così fan tutte with the Orchester of the Opéra de Rouen (director: Dieter Kaegi) followed, and in June 2014 a concert performance of Berlioz's La damnation de Faust in Biel. In October 2014, Antonín Dvořák's Rusalka was premiered in the chamber version by Marián Lejava in Biel / Solothurn under Zehnder's musical direction .

Private life

Kaspar Zehnder is the son of the soprano Ursula and the doctor Heinz Zehnder. He is married, has a son and a daughter and lives in Bern.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Zehnder, Kaspar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss conductor and flautist
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Riggisberg