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Conductor Zubin Mehta

Conductor's score and batons

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble. Orchestras, choirs, concert bands and other musical ensembles often have conductors.

Nomenclature[link]

The principal conductor of an orchestra or opera company is sometimes referred to as a music director or chief conductor, or by the German words Kapellmeister or Dirigent. Conductors of choirs or choruses are sometimes referred to as choral director, chorus master, or choirmaster, particularly for choirs associated with an orchestra. Conductors of military bands and other bands may hold the title of bandmaster, or drum major. Respected senior conductors are sometimes referred to by the Italian word, maestro ("master" as in "one who has mastered the art").

History of conducting[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

An early form of conducting is cheironomy, the use of hand gestures to indicate melodic shape. This has been practiced at least as far back as the Middle Ages. In the Christian church, the person giving these symbols held a staff to signify his role, and it seems that as music became more rhythmically involved, the staff was moved up and down to indicate the beat, acting as an early form of baton.

In the 17th century, other devices to indicate the passing of time came into use. Rolled up sheets of paper, smaller sticks and unadorned hands are all shown in pictures from this period. The large staff was responsible for the death of Jean-Baptiste Lully, who injured his foot with one while conducting a Te Deum for the King's recovery from illness. The wound became gangrenous, and despite the efforts of doctors the gangrene spread to his leg and he died two months later.^[1]

Conducting baton

In instrumental music, a member of the ensemble usually acted as the conductor. This was sometimes the principal violinist, who could use his bow as a baton, or a lutenist who would move the neck of his instrument in time with the beat. It was common to conduct from the harpsichord in pieces that had a basso continuo part. In opera performances, there were sometimes two conductors – the keyboard player was in charge of the singers, and the principal violinist was in charge of the orchestra.

By the early 19th century, it became the norm to have a dedicated conductor, who did not also play an instrument during the performance. The size of the usual orchestra expanded during this period, and the use of a baton became more common, as it was easier to see than bare hands or rolled-up paper. Among the earliest notable conductors were Louis Spohr, Carl Maria von Weber, Louis Antoine Jullien and Felix Mendelssohn, all of whom were also composers. Mendelssohn is claimed to have been the first conductor to utilize a wooden baton to keep time, a practice still generally in use today. Amongst prominent conductors who did not or do not use a baton are Pierre Boulez, Ferenc Fricsay, Valery Gergiev, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Kurt Masur, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Leopold Stokowski, and sometimes Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, and Georg Solti.^[2]

The composers Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner attained greatness as conductors, and they wrote two of the earliest essays dedicated to the subject. Berlioz is considered the first virtuoso conductor. Wagner was largely responsible for shaping the conductor's role as one who imposes his own view of a piece onto the performance rather than one who is just responsible for ensuring entries are made at the right time and that there is a unified beat. Predecessors who focused on conducting include François Antoine Habeneck, who founded the Orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire in 1828, though Berlioz was later to be alarmed at Habeneck's loose standards of rehearsal.

Wagner's one-time champion Hans von Bülow (1830–1894) was particularly celebrated as a conductor, although he also maintained his initial career as a pianist, an instrument on which he was regarded as among the greatest performers (he was a prized piano student of Franz Liszt, whose daughter Cosima he married – although she was to abandon him for Wagner. Liszt was a major figure in the history of conducting, who attained remarkable performances).

Bülow raised the technical standards of conducting to an unprecedented level through such innovations as separate, detailed rehearsals of different sections of the orchestra ("sectional rehearsal"). In his posts as head of (sequentially) the Bavarian State Opera, Meiningen Court Orchestra, and Berlin Philharmonic he brought a level of nuance and subtlety to orchestral performance previously heard only in solo instrumental playing, and in doing so made a profound impression on young artists like Richard Strauss, who at the age of 20 served as his assistant, and Felix Weingartner, who came to disapprove of his interpretations but was deeply impressed by his orchestral standards.

The next generation of conductors brought technical standards to new levels; perhaps most notable was the Hungarian-born Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922), who succeeded Bülow as music director of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1895. He had previously served as head of the Leipzig Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and was to serve as music director of the London Symphony Orchestra. Nikisch premiered important works by Anton Bruckner and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who greatly admired his work; Johannes Brahms, after hearing him conduct his Fourth Symphony, said it was "quite exemplary, it's impossible to hear it any better."

Nikisch took the London Symphony Orchestra on tour through the United States in April of 1912, the first American tour by a European orchestra. He also made one of the earliest recordings recording of a complete symphony: the Beethoven Fifth with the Berlin Philharmonic in November of 1913. Nikisch was also the first conductor to have his art captured on film – alas, silently. The film confirms reports that he made particularly mesmerizing use of eye contact and expression to communicate with an orchestra; such later conductors as Fritz Reiner stated that this aspect of his technique had a strong influence on their own.

Conductors of the generations after Nikisch often left extensive recorded evidence of their arts. Two particularly influential and widely recorded figures are often treated, somewhat inaccurately, as interpretive antipodes. They were the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867–1957) and the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler (1886–1954). Toscanini played in orchestras under Giuseppe Verdi and made his debut conducting Aida in 1886, filling in at the last minute for in indisposed conductor. He is to this day regarded by such authorities as James Levine as the greatest of all Verdi conductors. But Toscanini's repertory was wide, and it was in his interpretations of the German symphonists Beethoven and Brahms that he was particularly renowned and influential, favoring stricter and faster tempi than a conductor like Bülow or, before him, Wagner. Still, his style shows more inflection than his reputation may suggest, and he was particularly gifted at revealing detail and getting orchestras to play in a singing manner.

Furtwängler, whom many regard as the greatest interpreter of Wagner (although Toscanini was also admired in this composer) and Bruckner, conducted Beethoven and Brahms with a good deal of inflection of tempo – but generally in a manner that revealed the structure and direction of the music particularly clearly. He was an accomplished composer as well as performer, and a disciple of the theorist Heinrich Schenker, who emphasized concern for underlying long-range harmonic tensions and resolutions in a piece, a strength of Furtwängler's conducting. Along with his interest in the large scale, Furtwängler also shaped the details of the piece in a particularly compelling and expressive manner.

The two men had very different techniques: Toscanini's was Italianate, with a long, large baton and clear beats (often not using his left hand); Furtwängler beat time with less apparent precision, because he wanted a more rounded sound (although it is a myth that his technique was vague; many musicians have attested that he was easy to follow in his own way). In any event, their examples illustrate a larger point about conducting technique in the first half of the 20th century: it was not standardized. Great and influential conductors of the middle 20th century like Leopold Stokowski (1882–1977), Otto Klemperer (1885–1973), Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989) and Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990) – incidentally, the first American conductor to attain greatness and international fame – had widely varied techniques.

Karajan and Bernstein formed another apparent antipode in the 1960s–80s, Karajan as music director of the Berlin Philharmonic (1955–89) and Bernstein as, for part of that period, music director of the New York Philharmonic (1957–69), and later frequent guest conductor in Europe. Karajan's technique was highly controlled, and eventually he conducted with his eyes often closed; Bernstein's technique was demonstrative, with highly expressive facial gestures and hand and body movements. Karajan could conduct for hours without moving his feet, while Bernstein was known at times to leap into the air at a great climax. As the music director of the Berlin Philharmonic, Karajan cultivated warm, blended beauty of tone, which has sometimes been criticized as too uniformly applied; by contrast, in Bernstein's only appearance with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1979 – in the Mahler's Symphony No. 9 – he tried to get the orchestra to produce an "ugly" tone in a certain passage in which he believed it suited the expressive meaning of the music (the first horn player refused, and finally agreed to let an understudy play instead of himself). Both Karajan and Bernstein made extensive use of advances in media to convey their art, but in tellingly different ways. Bernstein hosted major prime-time national television series to educate and reach out to children and the public at large about classical music; Karajan made a series of films late in his life, but in them, he did not talk. Both made numerous recordings, but their attitudes toward recording differed: Karajan frequently made new studio recordings to take advantage of advances in recording technique, which fascinated him – he played a role in setting the specifications of the compact disc – but Bernstein, in his post-New York days, came to insist on (for the most part) live concert recordings, believing that music-making did not come to life in a studio without an audience.

In the last third of the 20th century, conducting technique – particularly with the right hand and the baton – became increasingly standardized. Conductors like Willem Mengelberg in Amsterdam until the end of World War II had had extensive rehearsal time to mold orchestras very precisely, and thus could have idiosyncratic techniques; modern conductors, who spend less time with any given orchestra, must get results with much less rehearsal. A more standardized technique allows communication to be much more rapid. Nonetheless, conductors' techniques still show a great deal of variety, particularly with the use of the left hand, facial and eye expression, and body language.

Through the 20th century, the ranks of major conductors were overwhelmingly white, male and European; but going into the 21st century, that is changing, and conductors are coming from increasingly diverse backgrounds. Women were almost unheard of in the ranks of leading orchestral conductors through most of the 19th and 20th centuries – there are remarkable and sobering accounts of orchestras refusing to play for them – but today, artists like Marin Alsop and Simone Young have decisively broken the gender barrier, to the point that gender neutrality is conceivable in the field and musicians increasingly regard gender as a non-issue. Alsop was appointed music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007 – the first woman ever appointed to head a major US orchestra – and also of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo in 2012. Young scored similar firsts when she became head of the Hamburg State Opera and Philharmoniker Hamburg in 2005; she is also the first woman conductor to record the Ring Cycle of Richard Wagner. And while Mexico has produced several major international conductors, Alondra de la Parra has become the first Mexican-born female to attain distinction in the profession. Similarly, Asian origin has become unremarkable, because of the international successes of conductors from the Far East such as Seiji Ozawa, who was the Boston Symphony Orchestra's music director from 1973 until 2002 after holding similar posts in San Francisco and Toronto, and Myung-Whun Chung, who has held major posts in Germany and France and now is bringing the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra to international attention. There is still a regrettable under-representation of artists of African, African-American, or African-European origins in the conducting profession, but there have been notable exceptions, such as Henry Lewis, Dean Dixon, James DePreist, Paul Freeman, and Michael Morgan. Even with the last concern acknowledged, we can still expect the leading conductors of the next century to be far more demographically representative of the world's population than has been typical of the field previously.

Technique[link]

2/4, 2/2, or fast 6/8 time

3/4 or 3/8 time

4/4 time

slow 6/8 time in the German style

Conducting is a means of communicating artistic directions to performers during a performance. Although there are many formal rules on how to conduct correctly, others are subjective, and a wide variety of different conducting styles exist depending upon the training and sophistication of the conductor. The primary responsibilities of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble, and to control the interpretation and pacing of the music. Communication is non-verbal during a performance, however in rehearsal frequent interruptions allow directions as to how the music should be played.

Conducting requires an understanding of the elements of musical expression (tempo, dynamics, articulation) and the ability to communicate them effectively to an ensemble. The ability to communicate nuances of phrasing and expression through gestures is also beneficial. Conducting gestures are preferably prepared beforehand by the conductor while studying the score, but may sometimes be spontaneous.

A distinction is sometimes made between orchestral conducting and choral conducting. Typically, orchestral conductors use a baton more often than choral conductors. The grip of the baton varies from conductor to conductor.

Beat and tempo[link]

The beat of the music is typically indicated with the conductor's right hand, with or without a baton. The hand traces a shape in the air in every bar (measure) depending on the time signature, indicating each beat with a change from downward to upward motion.^[3] The images show the most common beat patterns, as seen from the conductor's point of view.

The downbeat indicates the first beat of the bar, and the upbeat indicates the last beat of the bar. The instant at which the beat occurs is called the ictus (plural: ictūs or ictuses), and is usually indicated by a sudden (though not necessarily large) click of the wrist or change in baton direction. In some instances, "ictus" is also used to refer to a horizontal plane in which all the ictuses are physically located, such as the top of a music stand where a baton is tapped at each ictus. The gesture leading up to the ictus is called the "preparation", and the continuous flow of steady beats is called the "takt" (the German word for bar or measure).

If the tempo is slow or slowing, or if the time signature is compound, a conductor will sometimes indicate "subdivisions" of the beats. The conductor can do this by adding a smaller movement in the same direction as the movement for the beat that it belongs to.

Changes to the tempo are indicated by changing the speed of the beat. To carry out and to control a rallentando, a conductor may introduce beat subdivisions.

While some conductors use both hands to indicate the beat, with the left hand mirroring the right, formal education discourages such an approach. The second hand is therefore used for cueing the entrances of individual players or sections, and to aid indications of dynamics, phrasing, expression, and other elements.

Dynamics[link]

Dynamics are indicated in various ways. The dynamic may be communicated by the size of the conducting movements, larger shapes representing louder sounds. Changes in dynamic may be signalled with the hand that is not being used to indicate the beat: an upward motion (usually palm-up) indicates a crescendo; a downward motion (usually palm-down) indicates a diminuendo. Changing the size of conducting movements frequently results in changes in the character of the music depending upon the circumstances.

Dynamics can be fine-tuned using various gestures: showing one's palm to the performers or leaning away from them may demonstrate a decrease in volume. To adjust the overall balance of the various instruments or voices, these signals can be combined or directed towards a particular section or performer.

Cueing[link]

The indication of entries, when a performer or section should begin playing (perhaps after a long period of silence), is called "cueing". A cue must forecast with certainty the exact moment of the coming ictus, so that all the players or singers affected by the cue can begin playing simultaneously. Cueing is achieved by engaging the players before their entry and executing a clear preparation, often directed towards the specific players. An inhalation, which may or may not be a semi-audible "sniff" from the conductor, is a common element in the cueing technique of many conductors. Mere eye contact or a look in the general direction of the players may be sufficient in many instances, as when more than one section of the ensemble enters at the same time. Larger musical events may warrant the use of a larger or more emphatic cue designed to encourage emotion and energy.

Other musical elements[link]

Articulation may be indicated by the character of the ictus, ranging from short and sharp for staccato, to long and fluid for legato. Many conductors change the tension of the hands: strained muscles and rigid movements may correspond to marcato, while relaxed hands and soft movements may correspond to legato or espressivo.

Phrasing may be indicated by wide overhead arcs or by a smooth hand motion either forwards or side-to-side. A held note is often indicated by a hand held flat with palm up. The end of a note, called a "cutoff" or "release", may be indicated by a circular motion, the closing of the palm, or the pinching of finger and thumb. A release is usually preceded by a preparation and concluded with a complete stillness.

Conductors aim to maintain eye contact with the ensemble as much as possible, encouraging eye contact in return and increasing the dialogue between players/singers and conductor. Facial expressions may also be important to demonstrate the character of the music or to encourage the players.

See also[link]

• List of conductors
• Conductorless orchestra

References[link]

• Larry G. Curtis and David L. Kuehn, A Guide To Successful Instrumental Conducting, McGraw-Hill, 1992. ISBN 978-0697126948
• Michel Faul, Louis Jullien: musique, spectacle et folie au XIXe siècle, Atlantica 2006. ISBN 9782351650387.
• Norman Lebrecht, The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power, 2nd revised and updated edition, Citadel Press 2001
• Brock McElheran, Conducting Technique for beginners and Professionals", Oxford University Press, USA 1989. ISBN 978-0193858305
• Ilya Musin, The Technique of Conducting (Техника дирижирования), Muzyka Publishing House, Moscow, 1967
• Ennio Nicotra, Introduction to the orchestral conducting technique in accordance with the orchestral conducting school of Ilya Musin book+DVD; English, German, Italian, Spanish text (Edizioni Curci Milano, Italy 2007)
• Frederik Prausnitz, Score and Podium, W. W. Norton, 1983. ISBN 978-0393951547
• Max Rudolf, The Grammar Of Conducting, Macmillan USA, 2nd ed. 1981. ISBN: 978-0028722207

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Elliott W. Galkin, A History of Orchestral Conducting in Theory and Practice, Pendragon Press (New York, NY), 1988. ISBN 978-0918728470

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Conducting

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Conductors

• Ilya Musin Society
• How To Conduct Music: A Primer For Beginners by Dan Leeman, 4 May 2011
• What to Think About When You Conduct by Lee Humphries
• Learning to Sight-Sing: The Mental Mechanics of Aural Imagery by Lee Humphries
• Occupation: Conductor, Australian conductor Benjamin Northey on the experience of conducting, 29 May 2007
• Choral Technique and Interpretation by Henry Coward, H. W. Gray, 1914
• Karl Wilson Gehrkens (1882–1975). Essentials in Conducting at Project Gutenberg
• The New York Times video, including motion capture of Alan Gilbert, as he demonstrates and discusses the role of a conductor, rehearsing Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale.

London, Barbican Hall, Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Bernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈbɛrnɑrd ˈhaːi̯tɪŋk]) (born 4 March 1929) is a Dutch conductor and violinist.

Early life[link]

Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink.^[1] He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam. He played the violin in orchestras before taking courses in conducting under Ferdinand Leitner in 1954 and 1955.

Career[link]

Haitink became second conductor of the Netherlands Radio Union Orchestra in 1955. He took the post of chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in 1957. His conducting debut with the Concertgebouw Orchestra was on 7 November 1956, substituting for Carlo Maria Giulini.^[2] After the sudden death of Eduard van Beinum, Haitink was named first conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra on 1 September 1959. He became principal conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1961, and shared that position jointly with Eugen Jochum until 1963, when Haitink became sole principal conductor.^[3] With the Concertgebouw Orchestra, Haitink made many recordings for the Philips label, and later Decca and EMI Classics, and toured widely with the orchestra.

In the early 1980s, Haitink threatened to resign his Concertgebouw post in protest at threatened reductions to its subsidy from the Dutch government, which could potentially have led to the dismissal of 23 musicians from the orchestra. The financial situation was eventually settled,^[4] and Haitink remained as chief conductor until 1988. In 1999, he was named the honorary conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Outside of the Netherlands, Haitink was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1967 to 1979. Haitink also served as the music director at Glyndebourne Opera from 1978 to 1988.

He held the same position at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden from 1987 to 2002, where he was praised for his musicianship, but received criticism for the degree of attachment to the entire organisation.^[5][6]

From 2002 to 2004, he was chief conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle. His original contract with Dresden was through 2006, but Haitink resigned in 2004 over disputes with the Staatskapelle's Intendant, Gerd Uecker, on the orchestra's choice of successor.^[7]

Haitink served as principal guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1995 to 2004, when he took on the new title of conductor emeritus. In addition, he has appeared with l'Orchestre National de France and London Symphony Orchestra. In the early 2000s, he recorded the complete Beethoven and Brahms symphony cycles with the London Symphony Orchestra live in concert; the releases were part of the orchestra's influential venture into self-produced recordings on the "LSO Live" label. The Beethoven cycle in particular won several awards. Haitink has also continued his long associations with the Vienna Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Haitink is an honorary member of the Berlin Philharmonic.

In April 2006, after an acclaimed two-week engagement in March 2006 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), the CSO appointed Haitink to the newly created position of principal conductor, effective as of the 2006-2007 season.^[8] The duration of the contract is four years.^[9] Haitink had declined an offer from the CSO to be music director, citing his age.^[10] With respect to this contract, Haitink stated that "every conductor, including myself, has a sell-by date."^[11] He concluded his Chicago principal conductorship in June 2010, with a series of concerts of the complete Beethoven symphonies^[12] and the orchestra awarding to him the Theodore Thomas Medallion.^[13]

In 1977, he was awarded an honorary knighthood in the Order of the British Empire (KBE). In 2002, he was created an honorary Companion of Honour (CH).^[14] Musical America named Haitink its 2007 Musician of the Year.^[15]

Haitink has conducted and recorded a wide variety of repertoire, with the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Mahler, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams, and the complete piano concertos of Beethoven and Brahms with Claudio Arrau notable among his recordings.^[16] Haitink has made many recordings for several labels, including Philips Records, EMI Classics, Columbia Records, LSO Live, KCO Live, and CSO Resound. Other recordings include the complete orchestral works of Debussy, the two symphonies of Elgar, the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas, and Wagner's complete opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Haitink formally stated in a 2004 article that he would no longer conduct opera, but he made exceptions in 2007, directing three performances of Parsifal in Zurich in March and April and five of Pelléas et Mélisande in Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées) in June. He stated in 2004 that he did not plan to conduct again at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden.^[17] However, an April 2007 announcement stated that Haitink would return to the Royal Opera in December 2007, with the same Zurich production of Parsifal,^[18] and he fulfilled this engagement.^[19]

Personal life[link]

Haitink has five children from his first marriage to Marjolein Snijder. He and his fourth wife, the former Patricia Bloomfield, a barrister and past viola player in the Covent Garden Opera orchestra, reside in Lucerne, Switzerland.^[20]

Awards and honours[link]

• Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (UK, 1977)
• Honorary medal for Arts and Science of the Order of the House of Orange (Netherlands, 2000)
• Honorary Companion of Honour (UK, 2002)
• Award Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouwdirecties (Netherlands, 2007)
• Grammy Award (USA, 2008)

Selected discography[link]

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra,

• Mahler : Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection", Elly Ameling, Aafje Heynis, Netherlands Radio Chorus, (Philips 1968).

Boston Symphony Orchestra:

• Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Nanie with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (Philips, 1994)
• Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Tragic Overture (Philips, 1990)
• Brahms: Symphony No. 3, Alto Rhapsody with Jard Van Nes with the men of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (Philips, 1993)
• Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Haydn Variations (Philips, 1992)
• Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2, with Emanuel Ax (Sony, 1997)
• Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe with Tanglewood Festival Chorus (Philips, 1989)
• Ravel: Ma Mere l'Oye, Menuet antique, Rapsodie espagnole, La Valse (Philips, 1995)
• Ravel: Alborada del Gracioso, Bolero, Le tombeau de Couperin, Valses nobles et sentimentales (Philips, 1996)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra:

• Mahler, Symphony No. 2^[21] (2009)
• Mahler: Symphony No. 3^[22][23] (2007)
• Mahler: Symphony No. 6^[24] (2008)
• Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4^[25] (2008)
• Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (with Anton Webern: Im Sommerwind) ^[26] (2010)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bernard Haitink at Allmusic
• Bernard Haitink biography, Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest website
• Bernard Haitink biography at the Chicago Symphony

Interviews[link]

• Bernard Haitink interview by Bruce Duffie, January 13, 1997

Michelle Willis is a composer of religious and secular music. Much of her work has been in arranging the works of previous composers. Among her more widely cited arrangements is one of I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. She has also written original compositions such as The Tender Mercies of the Lord, Three Songs and The American Scout. Willis is also the composer of over 20 children's operas and two full length musicals. Her most recent production is the musical comedy, Once Upon a Thyme, where she wrote the script and composed and orchestrated the musical score.

Willis is a graduate of Brigham Young University - Idaho and Boise State University in choral education.

Willis also works as a private teacher of children in the arts of composition.^[1]

Willis currently lives in Herriman, Utah where she has served on the Herriman Arts Council since 2005.

Sources[link]

• website of Teton Music, Willis' distributor
• nowplayingutah.com bio
• Salt Lake Tribune, December 4, 2008 article about Herriman Arts Council

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2007)

Princess Donatella Flick (born Princess Donatella Missikoff) is a philanthropist, former wife of Gert Rudolph Flick of the wealthy German industrialist Flick family.

She is the daughter of Prince George Missikoff of Ossetia and an Italian mother, and the sister of Prince Oleg Missikoff. She is a philosophy graduate from the University of Rome^{[disambiguation needed ]} and a former Olympic gymnast.

She married Gert Rudolph Flick (known as "Muck Flick"), the grandson of the industrialist Friedrich Flick, from whom she separated with a controversial and widely publicized divorce case in 1997.

In 1990 she founded the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition to help young orchestral conductors to establish an international career.^[1] She is also known for her other philanthropic work, especially for her support of medical charities.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006 she was appointed "Commendatore" of the Italian Republic, and in 2007 was the recipient of a Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award, given to "outstanding art patrons whose personal commitment and achievements deserve wider recognition."^[2]

See also[link]

• Flick family

References[link]

External links[link]

• Donatella Flick Conducting Competition
• "United by the joy of music"
• "Philanthropist Donatella Flick To Receive Prestigious Montblanc De La Culture Patronage Award"
• "Classical: Donatella Flick conducting competition Barbican London"

This biographical article about a philanthropist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Zubin Mehta, 2007)

Zubin Mehta (ज़ुबिन मेहता); pronounced [ˈzuːbɪn ˈmeːɦt̪aː] (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Biography[link]

Zubin Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay, British India, the son of Mehli and Tehmina Mehta. His father Mehli Mehta was a violinist and founding conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Mehta is an alumnus of St. Mary's School, Mumbai, and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Mehta initially intended to study medicine, but eventually became a music student in Vienna at the age of 18, under Hans Swarowsky. Also at the same academy along with Mehta were conductor Claudio Abbado and conductor–pianist Daniel Barenboim.

Mehta's first marriage was to Canadian soprano Carmen Lasky in 1958. They have a son, Mervon and a daughter, Zarina. In 1964, they divorced.^[1] Two years after the divorce, Carmen married Zubin's brother, Zarin Mehta, now the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic. In July 1969, Mehta married Nancy Kovack, a former American film and television actress.^[2] Mehta is a permanent resident of the United States, but retains his Indian citizenship.

Conducting career[link]

Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Mumbai, October 2008

In 1958, Mehta made his conducting debut in Vienna. The same year he won the International Conducting Competition in Liverpool and was appointed assistant conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Mehta soon rose to the rank of chief conductor when he was made Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1960, a post he held until 1967. In 1961, he was named assistant conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; however, the orchestra's music director designate, Georg Solti, was not consulted on the appointment, and Solti subsequently resigned in protest;^[3] soon after, Mehta himself was named Music Director of the orchestra, and held the post from 1962 to 1978.

In 1978 Mehta became the Music Director and Principal Conductor of the New York Philharmonic and remained there until his resignation in 1991, becoming the longest holder of the post.

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) appointed Mehta its Music Advisor in 1969, Music Director in 1977, and made him its Music Director for Life in 1981.^[4]

Since 1985, Mehta has been chief conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Additionally, from 1998 until 2006, Mehta was Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. The Munich Philharmonic named him its Honorary Conductor. Since 2005, Mehta has been the main conductor (together with Lorin Maazel) of the Palau de les Arts, the new opera house of the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, in Valencia, Spain.

Mehta conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert in the years 1990, 1995, 1998 and 2007. He has also made a recording of Indian instrumentalist Ravi Shankar's Sitar Concerto No. 2, with Shankar and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

1990s[link]

In 1990, he conducted the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in the first ever Three Tenors concert in Rome, joining the tenors again in 1994 at the Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles. In between those appearances he conducted the historic 1992 production of Tosca in which each act took place in the actual setting and at the actual time specified in the score. This production starred Catherine Malfitano in the title role, Plácido Domingo as Cavaradossi and Ruggero Raimondi as Baron Scarpia. Act I was telecast live from Rome's basilica of Sant'Andrea della Valle on Saturday, 11 July, at noon (Central European Daylight Savings Time); act II was telecast later that evening from the Palazzo Farnese at 9:40 p.m.; act III was telecast live on Sunday, 12 July, at 7:00 am from the Castel Sant'Angelo, also known as Hadrian's Tomb.

In June 1994, Mehta performed the Mozart Requiem, along with the members of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the ruins of Sarajevo's National Library, in a fund raising concert for the victims of armed conflict and remembrance of the thousands of people killed in the Yugoslav wars. On 29 August 1999, he conducted Mahler Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection), at the vicinity of Buchenwald concentration camp in the German city of Weimar, with both the Bavarian State Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, sitting alongside each other. He toured his native country India and home city Mumbai (Bombay) in 1984, with the New York Philharmonic, and again in November–December 1994, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, along with soloists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham. In 1997 and 1998, Mehta worked in collaboration with Chinese film director Zhang Yimou on a production of the opera Turandot by Giacomo Puccini which they took to Florence, Italy, and then to Beijing, China, where it was staged, in its actual surroundings, in the Forbidden City with over 300 extras and 300 soldiers. for nine historic performances. The making of this production was chronicled in a documentary called The Turandot Project which Mehta narrated.

2000s[link]

Zubin Mehta, 2010

On 29 November 2005 Mehta appeared with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra performing Bruckner's Symphony No. 8. On 26 December 2005, the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean Tsunami, Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra performed for the first time in Chennai (formerly called Madras) at the Madras Music Academy. This tsunami memorial concert was organised by the Madras German consulate along with the Max-Mueller Bhavan/Goethe-Institut. 2006 was his last year with the Bavarian State Orchestra.

Performance style[link]

Mehta received praise early in his career for dynamic interpretations of the large scale symphonic music of Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Franz Schmidt. His conducting is renowned as being flamboyant, vigorous and forceful.

Honors and awards[link]

Mehta at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2011

Mehta's name is mentioned in the song "Billy the Mountain" on the 1972 album Just Another Band from L.A. by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.

At the Israel Prize ceremony in 1991, Mehta was awarded a special prize in recognition of his unique devotion to Israel and to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1995, Laureate of the Wolf Prize in Arts.

In 1999, Mehta was presented the "Lifetime Achievement Peace and Tolerance Award" of the United Nations.

The Government of India honoured Mehta in 1966 with the Padma Bhushan and in 2001 with India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan.^[5]

In 2005, he was voted the 117th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.^[6]

In September 2006 the Kennedy Center announced Mehta as one of the recipients of that year's Kennedy Center Honors, presented on 2 December 2006.

On 3 February 2007, Mehta was the recipient of the Second Annual Bridgebuilder Award at Loyola Marymount University.

In 2007 he received the prestigious Dan David Prize.

Conductor Karl Böhm awarded Mehta the Nikisch Ring – the Vienna Philharmonic Ring of Honor.

Mehta is an honorary citizen of Florence and Tel Aviv. He was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997. In 2001 he was bestowed the title of "Honorary Conductor" of the Vienna Philharmonic and in 2004 the Munich Philharmonic awarded him the same title, as did the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2006. At the end of his tenure with the Bavarian State Opera he was named Honorary Conductor of the Bavarian State Orchestra and Honorary Member of the Bavarian State Opera, and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Wien, appointed him honorary member in November 2007.

In October 2008, Mehta received the Praemium Imperiale (World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu), Japan.

On 1 March 2011, Mehta received the 2,434th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On 2 October 2011 he received the Echo Klassik in Berlin, for his life's work.^[7]

Films[link]

Mehta's life has been documented in Terry Sanders' film Portrait of Zubin Mehta. A documentary film about Mehta, Zubin and I, was produced by the grandson of an Israeli harpist who played with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra before Mehta assumed the helm. The filmmaker joins the orchestra on a tour of Mumbai and meets with him for two interviews, in India and Tel Aviv.^[8]

In Christopher Nupen's 1969 documentary The Trout about a performance of Schubert's Trout Quintet in London by Jacqueline du Pré, Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman, Mehta plays the double bass.^[9]

Educational projects[link]

In 2009, Mehta established Mifneh (Hebrew for "change"), a music education program for Israeli Arabs, in cooperation with Bank Leumi and the Arab-Israel Bank. Three schools, in Shfaram, the Jezreel Valley and Nazareth, are taking part in the pilot project.^[10]

He and his brother Zarin constitute the Advisor Council of the Mehli Mehta Foundation.^[11]

See also[link]

• List of Israel Prize recipients

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Martin Bookspan and Ross Yockey, Zubin: The Zubin Mehta Story
• Renate von Matuschka, Die Partitur meines Lebens.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zubin Mehta

• Official website
• Zubin Mehta at Allmusic
• Zubin Mehta at the Internet Movie Database
• Dan David Prize laureate 2007