David Zinman (born July 9, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American conductor and violinist.
After violin studies at Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota, earning his M.A. in 1963. [1] He took up conducting at Tanglewood and from 1958 to 1962 worked in Maine with Pierre Monteux; he served as Monteux's assistant from 1961 to 1964.
Zinman held the post of second conductor of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra from 1965 to 1977 and was principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 1979 to 1982.
Zinman served as music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra from 1974 to 1985, during the last two years of which tenure he also was principal guest conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He became music director in Baltimore in 1985. There he made several recordings for Telarc, Argo, and Sony. He also toured widely and began to implement ideas from the historically-informed-performance movement in interpretations of the Beethoven symphonies. [2] Upon relinquishing that Baltimore post in 1998, Zinman was named the orchestra's conductor laureate. But he renounced this title three years later in protest at what he saw as the orchestra's increasingly conservative programming. [3]
In 1998 Zinman worked as music director of the Ojai Music Festival alongside pianist Mitsuko Uchida. That same year he was appointed music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School, [4] where he founded and directed its American Academy of Conducting until his sudden resignation in April 2010. [5]
Zinman became music director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in 1995. His innovative programming with that orchestra included a series of late-night concerts, "Tonhalle Late", which combined classical music and a nightclub setting. [6] His recordings of the complete Beethoven symphonies for Arte Nova were based on the Jonathan Del Mar critical edition and was acclaimed by critics.[ citation needed ] He subsequently recorded Beethoven's overtures and concertos with the Tonhalle. [7] [8] [9] He conducted the Tonhalle Orchestra in its first-ever appearance at The Proms in 2003. [10] He concluded his Tonhalle music directorship on July 21, 2014, with a concert at The Proms. [11]
Zinman conducted the soundtrack of the 1993 film of the New York City Ballet production of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker . In 2009 he led the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in the filmscore 180°: If Your World Is Suddenly Upside-Down, composed by the sibling trio Diego Baldenweg with Nora Baldenweg and Lionel Baldenweg; this won the Suisa prize for "Best Original Score" at the Locarno Film Festival in 2010. [12] [13]
In 2006 he received the Theodore Thomas Award presented by the Conductors' Guild.[ citation needed ]
Zinman's 1992 recording of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony no.3 with Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta was an international bestseller. [6]
Zinman and his second wife, Mary, an Australian violist, live in New Jersey. [14] Zinman has two sons and a daughter.
Pierre Benjamin Monteux was a French conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in 1907. He came to prominence when, for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company between 1911 and 1914, he conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and other prominent works including Petrushka, The Nightingale, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, and Debussy's Jeux. Thereafter he directed orchestras around the world for more than half a century.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Paavo Järvi is an Estonian-American conductor. He has been chief conductor of Zurich's Tonhalle since 2020.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore SO has its principal residence at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where it performs more than 130 concerts a year. In 2005, it began regular performances at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda.
Leonidas Kavakos is a Greek violinist and conductor. As a violinist, he has won prizes at several international violin competitions, including the Sibelius, Paganini, Naumburg, and Indianapolis competitions. He is an Onassis Foundation scholar. He has also recorded for record labels such as Sony/BMG and BIS. As a conductor, he was an artistic director of the Camerata Salzburg and has been a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Christian Tetzlaff is a German violinist.
Kirill Gerstein is a Russian-American concert pianist. He is the sixth recipient of the Gilmore Artist Award. Born in the former Soviet Union, Gerstein is an American citizen based in Berlin. Between 2007-2017, he led piano classes at the Stuttgart Musik Hochschule. In 2018, he took up the post of Professor of Piano at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule in Berlin in addition to the Kronberg Academy’s Sir András Schiff Performance Programme for Young Artists.
The Zurich Chamber Orchestra is a Swiss chamber orchestra based in Zurich. The ZKO's principal concert venue in Zurich is the Tonhalle. The ZKO also performs in Zurich at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the ZKO-Haus in the Seefeld quarter of the city, and such churches as the Fraumünster and the Kirche St. Peter. The ZKO presents approximately 40 performances in Zurich each year, in addition to approximately 40 children's concerts and performances elsewhere in Switzerland and abroad. In the 2016–2017, season the total number of concerts was151, a record for the ZKO.
Valeriy Sokolov is a Ukrainian violinist.
Christoph Koncz is an Austrian-Hungarian classical musician. He performs internationally as a conductor, violin soloist, chamber musician and principal violinist of the Vienna Philharmonic. At the age of just nine, he received worldwide acclaim for starring as child prodigy Kaspar Weiss in the Canadian feature film The Red Violin, which won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Martin Fröst is a Swedish clarinetist and conductor. As a clarinetist he performs internationally and is considered one of the most renowned instrumental soloists ever.
Jan Lisiecki is a Canadian-born classical pianist of Polish ancestry. Lisiecki performs over a hundred concerts annually and has worked closely with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, his career at the top of the international concert scene spanning over a decade. He has been a recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon since the age of fifteen.
Oksana Pečeny is a Ukrainian violinist.
Antti Aleksi Siirala is a Finnish pianist.
David Philip Hefti is a Swiss composer and conductor.
Elmar Gasanov is a Ukrainian pianist trained at the Moscow Conservatory representing Russia at international competitions. He later undertook postgraduate studies at London's Royal College of Music, as a student of Professor Vanessa Latarche. Gasanov graduated with the Master of Music degree with Distinction.
Fabian Müller is a Swiss composer.
Oliver Schnyder is a Swiss classical pianist.
The 2011 Echo Klassik Awards were held on October 2, 2011. It is the 19th edition of the annual Echo Klassik awards for classical music. The ceremony took place in the Konzerthaus Berlin and was broadcast on ZDF. It was hosted by Thomas Gottschalk.
Selected Discography
Elgar- Enigma Variations/Cockaigne Overture (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra) Telarc 1989