Andrés Orozco-Estrada

Andrés Orozco-Estrada (born December 14, 1977) is a Colombian violinist and conductor. Born in Medellín, Colombia, he had musical instruction at the Instituto Musical Diego Echavarria (IMDE) as a youth, and began to play violin there. He started to take conducting classes in 1992. In 1997, he began additional conducting studies at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien, where his teachers included Uroš Lajovic.

In June 2004, he first conducted the Tonkünstler Orchestra at a Vienna Festwochen concert, as an emergency substitute conductor. This appearance led to his appointment as assistant conductor of the orchestra, a post he held for two years. Orozco-Estrada became principal conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchestra with the 2009-2010 season, with an initial contract for three years. His current contract with the Tonkünstler Orchestra is through the 2014-2015 season, at which time he is scheduled to conclude his tenure.

From 2005 to 2009, Orozco-Estrada was principal conductor of the ensemble recreation - Großes Orchester Graz. He was music director of Oper Klosterneuburg from 2005 to 2007.

Alte Oper

The original opera house in Frankfurt is now the Alte Oper (Old Opera), a concert hall and former opera house in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was inaugurated in 1880 but destroyed by bombs in 1944. It was rebuilt, slowly, in the 1970s, opening again in 1981. Frankfurt Opera is now in a modern building nearby, next door to Schauspiel Frankfurt (drama). Many important operas were performed for the first time in Frankfurt, including Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in 1937.

The square in front of the building is known as Opernplatz (Opera Square). The Alte Oper is in the centre of town Innenstadt, near the Bankenviertel.

Inauguration

The building was designed by the Berlin architect Richard Lucae, financed by the citizens of Frankfurt and built by Philipp Holzmann. Construction began in 1873. It opened on October 20, 1880. Among the guests was Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, who was impressed and said: Das könnte ich mir in Berlin nicht erlauben. (I couldn't permit myself this sort of thing in Berlin.)

Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt

Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt is the official name of the opera and drama theatres in Frankfurt am Main. The Oper Frankfurt (Frankfurt Opera) is one of the leading opera houses in Europe, and voted best "Opera house of the year" several times since 2003.

The more famous historical building of the Alte Oper serves as a concert hall today.

History

Frankfurt's first opera was Johann Theile's Adam und Eva, performed in 1698 by Johann Velten's touring company. The young Goethe's first operas in his home town of Frankfurt were productions by Theobold Marchand's company.

1918-1944

During the 1920s the opera in Frankfurt had more prominent Jewish singers than any other company in Germany, including the tenor Hermann Schramm, bass Hans Erl (the first King in Schreker's Der Schatzgräber), baritone Richard Breitenfeld and contralto Magda Spiegel, who also toured with Frankfurt Opera performing Wagner in the Netherlands. These singers were forced to leave the opera in June 1933, though the opera's director Hans Meissner was able to persuade the mayor to speak up for Schramm, who had a non-Jewish wife. Other Jewish members of the opera company among those rounded up at 9 November 1938 at the Festhalle Frankfurt, where Erl sang In diesen Heilgen Hallen, from the Magic Flute for the deportees. Members of Frankfurt Opera were sent to Auschwitz and other camps where they perished. Schramm survived, living to testify against the Frankfurt Gestapo officer Heinrich Baab in 1951.

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.

Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra

The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (German: Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR) is an orchestra based in Stuttgart in Germany. The ensemble was founded in 1945 by American occupation authorities as the orchestra for Radio Stuttgart, under the name Sinfonieorchester von Radio Stuttgart (Symphony Orchestra of Radio Stuttgart). The radio network later became the Süddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR, South German Radio), and the orchestra changed its name in 1949 to the Sinfonieorchester des Süddeutschen Rundfunks (South German Radio Symphony Orchestra). In 1959, the orchestra took on the name Südfunk-Sinfonieorchester, and acquired its current name in 1975.

Like many broadcast orchestras in Germany, the orchestra has a reputation for performing contemporary music. Past principal conductors included Sir Neville Marriner (1983–1989), who later held the title of principal guest conductor.Georges Prêtre, who became the orchestra's artistic director in 1996, has the title of Conductor Laureate. From 1998 to 2011, Roger Norrington was principal conductor, and incorporated his ideas of historically informed performance, including minimal use of vibrato, into the orchestra's style of playing. Norrington now shares the title of Ehrendirigent (honorary conductor) with Georges Prêtre. In March 2010, the orchestra announced the appointment of Stéphane Denève as its next principal conductor, starting with the 2011-2012 season. His initial contract was for 3 years. In June 2013, the orchestra announced the extension of Denève's contract through the 2015-2016 season.