Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Ensemble Ascolta, Basel Sinfonietta, Peter Rundel, Bas Wiegers
Biography Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Ensemble Ascolta, Basel Sinfonietta, Peter Rundel, Bas Wiegers
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester
Founded by Karl Münchinger in 1945, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra has held a prominent position in the international orchestral world for some seven decades. Münchinger, who was principal conductor of the orchestra for over 40 years, was able to attract a small group of élite players in the early days to realise his vision of a completely new and exemplary way of interpreting works by Johann Sebastian Bach and the Viennese classicists. Dennis Russell Davies, who was principal conductor from 1995 to 2006, redefined the orchestra’s artistic priorities to enhance the orchestra’s versatility. Under his directorship the orchestra was able to distinguish itself, both in the concert hall as well as in the recording studio with repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries including specially commissioned compositions, particularly from the composers Phillip Glass and Giya Kancheli. With Davies, a complete edition of all 107 symphonies by Joseph Haydn was recorded live for Sony BMG in a unique series of concerts sponsored by Daimler-Benz, extending over an eleven-year period ending in 2009. A recording of works by Bartók and Lutosławski appeared on the ECM label in 2012 conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, who remains associated with the orchestra as conductor laureat.
Since 2006, Michael Hofstetter, the internationally renowned specialist for authentic performing practice, has been the orchestra’s principal conductor. Further commissioned works by composers such as Siegfried Matthus, Helmut Oehring and Milko Kelemen have been added to the orchestra’s already extensive contemporary repertoire during Hofstetter’s chief conductorship. Thus continues the long, illustrious recording tradition of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, begun in Geneva in 1949 for the Decca company. Up until the present day the discography of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra comprises several hundred published recordings. From beginning with the 2013-14 season the young conductor Matthias Foremny took over the chief conductorship of the orchestra and will be followed by world-class violinist and conductor Thomas Zehetmair in 2019.
Innumerable concert performances around the globe and participation in the top international music festivals have been the hallmark of the high quality and the outstanding reputation of the ensemble. Soloists such as Jacques Thibaud, Yehudi Menuhin and Wilhelm Kempf performed with the orchestra in the 50s, Julius Katchen and Arthur Grumiaux in the 60s, Mstislav Rostropovich, Nathan Milstein, and Leonid Kogan in the 70s. After Münchinger’s retirement, the orchestra invited some soloists to play and direct the orchestra. Among the first to do so were Henryk Szeryng, Trevor Pinnock and Janos Starker. Kolja Blacher, Leon Fleisher, Daniel Hope, Paul Meyer Renaud Capuçon and Steven Isserlis have all directed concerts with the orchestra. In recent years the orchestra has played with, among others, Rolando Villazón, Fazil Say, Daniel Müller-Schott, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Ian Bostridge, François Leleux, Xavier de Maistre, Emmanuel Pahud, Martin Fröst and Gautier Capuçon. In past seasons guest conductors have included Christoph Poppen, Pablo Gonzalez, Ariel Zuckermann, Wolfram Christ and Günter Pichler.
The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra fulfills its function as regional ambassador with regular worldwide concert tours. After concerts in China, Nepal, India and Japan in the last years, the orchestra has also made recent appearances in South America, Italy, Austria, Netherlands and France.
Great importance is given by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra to its engagement with local educational institutions. Besides frequent collaboration with the Stuttgart Hochschule für Musik, the orchestra is involved in educational projects with pupils and young people with impaired vision.
For its exceptional achievements, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra was awarded the 2008 European Chamber Music Prize by the European Cultural Foundation.
The Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra is supported by the Land Baden-Wuerttemberg, the City of Stuttgart and the company Robert Bosch GmbH.
Peter Rundel
is one of the most sought-after partners for leading European orchestras, owing to the depth of his approach to music of various styles and epochs as well as his interpretive creativity.
He is regularly invited to conduct the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the German Symphony Orchestra and the NDR, WDR and SWR Radio Symphony orchestras. Recent guest appearances include the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Following performances of Heiner Goebbels’s Surrogate Cities in Taipei last summer, which marked the work’s Asian premiere, Peter Rundel opened the 2018/19 season at the Klangspuren Schwaz Festival, marking its 25th anniversary. He made his debut at the Flanders Opera in 2019 conducting the world premiere of Hector Parras’s Les Bienveillantes, directed by Calixto Bieito.
Peter Rundel has conducted operatic premieres at the Bavarian State Opera, the Wiener Festwochen, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Liceu in Barcelona, the Bregenz Festival and the Schwetzingen SWR Festival, collaborating with directors such as Peter Konwitschny, Peter Mussbach, Philippe Arlaud, Reinhild Hoffmann, Heiner Goebbels, Carlus Padrissa and Willy Decker.
His operatic repertoire includes works such as Die Zauberflöte at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hänsel und Gretel and Le nozze di Figaro at the Volksoper in Vienna, as well as ground-breaking contemporary music theatre productions such as Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Licht, Wolfgang Mitterer’s Massacre, Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules, the world premieres of Georg Friedrich Haas’s Nacht and Bluthaus, Isabel Mundry’s Ein Atemzug – die Odyssee and Emmanuel Nunes’s Das Märchen and La Douce.
Peter Rundel has appeared several times at the Ruhrtriennale, conducting Carl Orff’s Prometheus, which won the Carl Orff Prize in 2013, and Louis Andriessen’s De Materie, also seen at the Park Avenue Armory Hall in New York and the Teatro Argentino in La Plata.
Peter Rundel has been awarded many prizes for his recordings of 20th-century music, including the prestigious German Record Prize, the Grand Prix du Disque, the Echo Klassik Award and a Grammy Award nomination.
Bas Wiegers
has distinguished himself with his charisma, openness and undogmatic approach at the helm of leading European orchestras and soloist ensembles. The conductor has a detailed approach to his work, which draws on his long experience as a violinist and a wide-ranging knowledge of repertoire stretching from Baroque to contemporary music.
In his homeland of the Netherlands, Bas Wiegers has worked with ensembles including the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic and, together with Peter Eötvös, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Additionally, he has made guest appearances with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Athens State Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Ensemble Modern, Neue Vokalsolisten Stuttgart and at festivals such as November Music, Holland Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, London Almeida Festival, Aldeburgh Festival and Acht Brücken in Cologne.
In September 2018, Bas Wiegers was appointed the first guest conductor of Klangforum Wien, with whom he will appear in the 2019/20 season at Wien Modern and the Cologne Philharmonie, among others. Overall, the new season will be varied: he will perform Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in Arnhem and make his debut at the Staatsoper Stuttgart with Death in Venice. Bas Wiegers will return to the Stadttheater Klagenfurt for the world premiere of Sciarrino's new opera Il canto s'attrista, perché?, and will conduct programmes at Het Gelders Orkest and the Estonian National Symphony that fluctuate from Rebel to Mozart and Schubert to Schreker. Last but not least, he will debut with the SWR Symphony Orchestra and the Ensemble Resonanz (Donaueschingen).
As an opera conductor, Bas Wiegers has led Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, Kyriakides’ An Ocean of Rain as well as Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias and La Voix Humaine. In 2017 he led the premiere of Helmut Oehring’s KUNST MUSS (zu weit gehen) oder DER ENGEL SCHWIEG at the Cologne Opera. In March 2019 he premiered the revised version of Georg Friedrich Haas' successful opera Koma at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt.
Bas Wiegers is a treasured musical partner for composers such as Louis Andriessen, Georges Aperghis, Georg Friedrich Haas, Pierluigi Billone, Helmut Lachenmann and Rebecca Saunders.
Following his musical education in Amsterdam and Freiburg, Bas Wiegers started a successful career as a violinist with an emphasis on early music. In 2009 he was awarded a conducting scholarship from the Kersjes Foundation, and later worked as an assistant to Mariss Jansons and Susanna Mälkki at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which convinced him to completely concentrate on conducting.
