Herbert Blomstedt, Conductor Laureate
Herbert Blomstedt, Conductor Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, served as Music Director from 1985 until 1995. Born in Springfield, Mass. in 1927, Mr. Blomstedt moved with his family to Sweden in 1929 and later attended the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the University of Uppsala. He studied contemporary music at Darmstadt and Baroque music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, also continuing his conducting studies with Igor Markevitch, with Jean Morel at Juilliard, and with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood’s Berkshire Music Center. Honors and accomplishments followed quickly: in 1953, the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize; in 1954, his conducting debut (with the Stockholm Philharmonic) and first appointment as a music director (with Sweden’s Norrköping Symphony); and in 1955, first prize at the Salzburg conducting competition.
In 2005, Mr. Blomstedt concluded his tenure as Music Director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, a post he assumed in September 1998. During his time in Leipzig, he expanded the orchestra’s programming with Scandinavian works and compositions from the early Classical and Baroque periods, and he conducted the orchestra in a number of recordings, including Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and the Bruckner Ninth. Mr. Blomstedt has also held positions as music director of the Oslo Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony, and Swedish Radio Symphony. In 1975, the musicians of the Dresden Staatskapelle invited him to become their music director; in his ten years with that ensemble, he led it in its first visits to the U.S. and on many acclaimed recordings, including complete cycles of the Beethoven and Schubert symphonies. From 1996 to 1998 he was chief conductor of Hamburg’s North German Radio Symphony. Currently, he is Honorary Conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and the Bamberg Symphony.
In his decade as Music Director of the SFS, Mr. Blomstedt led the Orchestra to worldwide recognition. Together, he and the SFS toured Europe, Asia, and the U.S. and presented concerts at the festivals of Salzburg, Edinburgh, and Lucerne. Their recordings on the London label captured awards, including France’s Grand Prix du Disque, Britain’s Gramophone Award, and two Grammys. Their recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 was named Best Recording of 1995 by the German Record Critics. Mr. Blomstedt continues to conduct the SFS regularly, and led the Orchestra most recently in two weeks of subscription concerts in October 2006.
Herbert Blomstedt is in constant demand as a guest conductor and has led many of the world’s greatest orchestras. His many distinctions include membership in the Royal Musical Academy of Stockholm, of which Beethoven was a member, and several honorary doctorates. In 1992 he was awarded Columbia University’s Ditson Award for distinguished service to American music. He received Austria’s Anton Bruckner Prize in 2001, and Denmark’s Carl Nielsen Prize in 2002. He is a Knight of the North Star, Stockholm, and a Knight of the Dannebrogen, Copenhagen.