Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Yannick Nézet-Séguin (born Yannick Séguin; 6 March 1975) is a Canadian conductor and pianist. He currently holds leadership posts with the Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Biography

Early years

Nézet-Séguin was born in Montreal to two specialists in education, Serge P. Séguin, Ph.D., a university professor, and Claudine Nézet, M.A., a university lecturer and coordinator. He began to study piano at age five, with Jeanne-d'Arc Lebrun-Lussier and decided to become an orchestra conductor at age ten.

Nézet-Séguin studied successively at St-Isaac-Jogues Primary School, at Mont-St-Louis Secondary School and at Bois-de-Boulogne College. In the meantime, he was admitted to Anisia Campos's piano class, at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec where he earned five first prizes in piano and in four related musical subjects. He also studied choral conducting with Joseph Flummerfelt at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, and did many master classes with renowned conductors. At nineteen, he met and was invited to follow Carlo Maria Giulini in rehearsals and concerts for more than a year. He became the musical director of the Chœur polyphonique de Montréal in 1994 and obtained the same post at Choeur de Laval in 1995. In 1995, he founded his own professional orchestral and vocal ensemble, La Chapelle de Montréal, with whom he performed 2 to 4 concerts a year until 2002. He considers Charles Dutoit as his first inspiration as a child and Carlo Maria Giulini as his master. From 1998 to 2002, Nézet-Séguin was chorus master, assistant conductor and music adviser of the Opéra de Montréal.

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (RPhO; Dutch: Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest) is a Dutch symphony orchestra based in Rotterdam. Its primary venue is the concert hall De Doelen. The RPhO is considered one of the Netherlands' two principal orchestras of international standing, second to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. In addition to symphony concerts, the RPhO performs as the opera orchestra in productions at De Nederlandse Opera, as do other Dutch ensembles.

Several musicians founded the RPhO in 1918 as a private "Society of Professional Musicians for Mutual Cultivation of the Arts". It had paying members and the aim was to make music for personal pleasure without pursuit of gain. The first musical director was Willem Feltzer, who was the manager of two Rotterdam music schools. Alexander Schmuller succeeded Felzer as music director, for two years.

In May 1930, Eduard Flipse was appointed principal conductor, and held the post until 1962. Under his stewardship, the amateur ensemble evolved into a professional orchestra. When Flipse took over from Feltzer and Schmuller, the orchestra was in poor shape both financially and artistically. However, Filpse had both managerial skills and musical vision. He established an "Instrument Fund" to raise funds for new instruments and other necessities, and the orchestra became known for its special attention to contemporary music, featuring the work of Dutch composers such as Johan Wagenaar, Willem Pijper and Alphons Diepenbrock.

Berlin Philharmonic

The Berlin Philharmonic (German: Berliner Philharmoniker), is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany and is consistently ranked as one of the best orchestras in the world.

Formerly Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester; BPO, its primary concert venue is the Philharmonie, located in the Kulturforum area of the city. Since 2002, its principal conductor is Sir Simon Rattle. Funding for the organization is subsidized by the city of Berlin and a partnership with Deutsche Bank.

In 2006, ten European media outlets voted the Berlin Philharmonic number three on a list of "top ten European Orchestras", after the Vienna Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, while in 2008 it was voted the world's number two orchestra in a survey among leading international music critics organized by the British magazine Gramophone (behind the Concertgebouw). The BPO supports several chamber music ensembles.

History

The Berlin Philharmonic was founded in Berlin in 1882 by 54 musicians under the name Frühere Bilsesche Kapelle (literally, "Former Bilse's Band"); the group broke away from their previous conductor Benjamin Bilse after he announced his intention of taking the band on a fourth-class train to Warsaw for a concert. The orchestra was renamed and reorganized under the financial management of Hermann Wolff in 1882. Their new conductor was Ludwig von Brenner; in 1887 Hans von Bülow, one of the most esteemed conductors in the world, took over the post. This helped to establish the orchestra's international reputation, and guests Hans Richter, Felix von Weingartner, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Johannes Brahms and Edvard Grieg conducted the orchestra over the next few years. Programmes of this period show that the orchestra possessed only 46 strings, much less than the Wagnerian ideal of 64.

The National

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Orchestra

An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkᵻstrə/ or US /ˈɔːrˌkɛstrə/; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a large instrumental ensemble used in classical music that contains sections of string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes be grouped into a fifth section such as a keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for 20th and 21st century compositions, electric and electronic instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but changed very little in composition during the course of the 20th century.