Wolfgang Balzer (conductor)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wolfgang Balzer (* 1941 in Berlin ) is a German conductor . From 1990 to 1993 he was chief conductor of the orchestra of the Halle Opera House .

Life

Wolfgang Balzer was born in Berlin in 1941. At the age of seven he received his first piano lessons at the music school in Klingenthal, Saxon Musikwinkel , where he grew up. From 1952 to 1958 he was a member of the Leipzig St. Thomas Choir under the Thomas Cantors Günther Ramin and Kurt Thomas . According to his own statements, he left the GDR in 1958 for political reasons .

From 1961 he studied school music in Heidelberg, then conducting in Munich and Berlin. In 1966 he went to the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt , where he was most recently solo and répétiteur with conducting duties. In 1970 he was an assistant at the Bayreuth Festival and then moved to the Bonn Opera as 1st Kapellmeister . From 1972 to 1975 he was chief conductor of the Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz . Guest conductors have taken him to various orchestras in Europe (Basel, Lisbon, London and Luxembourg, among others). In 1973 he made his debut with the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra . In 1976/77 he was director of the RIAS Youth Orchestra in Berlin.

From 1978 he worked mainly in the USA. He became ad interim music director of the New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestra in Boston, Massachusetts. With this he brought the Concerto for Grand Orchestra of William Thomas McKinley to premiere . In 1981 he took over the direction of the Brown University Orchestra in Providence, Rhode Island. Individual engagements led him to the Bamberg Symphony (1979) and the Munich Philharmonic (1986). After seven years he finally returned to Germany. Balzer stated in an interview that the social differences he perceived during the Reagan administration were one of the reasons.

In 1988 he went to the Stadttheater Würzburg as 1st Kapellmeister . After the fall of the Wall in 1990, a Gewandhaus cellist he knew put him in Leipzig. After a few guest conductors he became first permanent conductor and deputy general music director of the Leipzig Opera . In the same year he also took over as the successor to Christian Kluttig as chief conductor of the Handel Festival Orchestra and the orchestra of the Halle Opera House as well as the musical direction of what would later become the Halle Opera House . As such, he also appeared at the Handel Festival . During the XX. Halle Music Festival in 1990, he brought the symphony of Axel Gebhardt premiered. Because of his double burden as a conductor, his contract was canceled in Leipzig in 1991. In 1993 he also left Halle prematurely. Artistic director Klaus Froboese argued that Balzer's spontaneity “often led to confusion and organizational upheavals”.

After that, ee u. a. the Loh-Orchester Sondershausen (1994), the Orchestra of the State Theaters of Saxony (1996) and the Munich Radio Orchestra (1997). In the 1998/99 season he was choir director at the Ulm Theater . He then moved to the National Theater Mannheim , where he worked from 1999 to 2002.

Balzer is married to an American woman and has one son. Even during his engagement in the new federal states , he lived in Weinheim an der Bergstrasse.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Matthias Frede: With a pioneering spirit at the podium for a new music theater. Wolfgang Balzer relies on the ambitious Handel Festival Orchestra Halle . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , August 8, 1991, p. 7.
  2. ↑ a b c d Elisabeth Peuker: Achievements only flourish in a healthy human atmosphere. Conversation with Wolfgang Balzer, chief conductor of the Handel Festival Orchestra in Halle . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , November 28, 1990, p. 6.
  3. ↑ a b c d e ART: The Loh Orchestra is giving its second symphony concert . World-class artist will be a guest . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , September 29, 1994, p. 16.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Interview with Wolfgang Balzer: Germany After the Elections . C-SPAN , 1990.
  5. ↑ German Stage Yearbook. The large address book for stage, film, radio and television 76 (1968), pp. 289f.
  6. ↑ Energieversorgung Mittelrhein (Ed.): History of the City of Koblenz . Volume 2: From the French city to the present . Overall editing: Ingrid Bátori in conjunction with Dieter Kerber and Hans Josef Schmidt. Theiss, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-8062-1036-5 , p. 551.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Balzer , archive of the DSO, accessed: June 13, 2020.
  8. ^ Peter Muck : One Hundred Years of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra . Volume 3: The members of the orchestra, the programs, the concert tours, first and world premieres . Schneider, Tutzing 1982, ISBN 3-7952-0341-4 , p. 457.
  9. ↑ Chronicle of ARD: RIAS Youth Orchestra under new management , web.ard.de, accessed: June 1, 2020.
  10. ^ The Changing Scene . In: Music Educators Journal 67 (1981) 6, pp. 17-20, here: p. 18.
  11. ↑ Linda I. Solow (Ed.): The Boston Composers Project: A Bibliography of Contemporary Music . MIT Press, Cambridge et al. a. 1983, ISBN 0-262-02198-6 , p. 339.
  12. ^ Martha Mitchel: Encyclopedia Brunoniana . Brown University Library, Providence 1993, online .
  13. ↑ Reiner Gebauer: Surprises, flights of fancy, but also disappointments. The fortieth Handel Festival in Halle sets standards for the future . In: Neue Zeit , June 15, 1991, vol. 47, edition 137, p. 13.
  14. ^ Wolfgang Boeckh: Music from Halle and Karlsruhe. Workshop concert during the XX. Halle Music Days . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , October 25, 1990, p. 9.
  15. ↑ Leipziger Oper terminates contract with conductor . In: Berliner Zeitung , January 26, 1991, vol. 47, issue 22, p. 13.
  16. ^ Matthias Frede, Andreas Hillger: baton as baton for world citizens in tails. Musicians between guest performance and homework: in Halle and Dessau orchestras lose their bosses . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , July 1, 1995, p. 24.
  17. ^ Mathias Frede: Early resignation of the chief conductor. Separation from Balzer - MZ telephone conversation with director Klaus Froboese . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , November 11, 1992, p. 7.
  18. ↑ Jens Daniel Schubert: Warm sounds from the ideal image of a woman. State theaters opened the concert season . In: Sächsische Zeitung , October 21, 1996, p. 17.
  19. ↑ Doris Sennefelder (Ed.): 50 Years of the Münchner Rundfunkochester, 1952–2002 . On behalf of Bayerischer Rundfunk, Bärenreiter, Kassel u. a. 2001, ISBN 3-7618-1530-1 , p. 246.
  20. ↑ THEATER ULM: Künsterisches Personal , operone.de, accessed: June 12, 2020.
  21. ↑ ULM: New choir director at the theater . In: Südkurier , May 6, 1999.
  22. ↑ NATIONAL THEATER MANNHEIM: Künsterisches Personal , operone.de, accessed: June 12, 2020.
  23. ↑ German Stage Yearbook. The large address book for stage, film, radio and television 109 (2001) = 2000/2001, p. 378.
  24. ^ French Conductor, 29, Achieves Mitropoulos Victory and $ 5,000 . In: The New York Times , December 13, 1971, p. 53.
personal data
SURNAME Balzer, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor
DATE OF BIRTH 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin