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| Markus Stenz (Photo: Kaupo Kikkas) |
From our friends at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra...
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Announces Extension of Principal Guest Conductor Markus Stenz’s Contract Through 2018-19 Season
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announces the extension of Principal Guest Conductor Markus Stenz’s contract through the 2018-19 season.
Stenz was appointed to the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the BSO in July 2014, with an initial three-year contract effective beginning in the 2015-16 season. That agreement has now been extended through the end of the 2018-19 concert season, which concludes in June 2019.
“Markus Stenz is an exceptional artist and dynamic leader, and he has a great rapport with Music Director Marin Alsop and our superb musicians,” BSO President and CEO Peter Kjome stated. “We are delighted that Markus will continue as our Principal Guest Conductor for the 2018-19 season.”
Stenz also serves as Principal Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor-in-residence of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. He has studied with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Seji Ozawa.
Markus Stenz next leads the BSO April 6-8 in works by Beethoven, Korngold and Rachmaninoff and again April 19-21 in works by Beethoven and Mahler.
About the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra:
For over a century, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) has been recognized as one of America’s leading orchestras and one of Maryland’s most significant cultural institutions. Under the direction of Music Director Marin Alsop, the Orchestra is internationally recognized and locally admired for its innovation, performances and recordings, and educational outreach initiatives including OrchKids. Launched by Marin Alsop and the BSO in 2008, OrchKids provides children educational resources and fosters social change through the power of music in some of Baltimore’s most underserved communities.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performs annually for more than 350,000 people throughout the State of Maryland. Since 1982, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has performed at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore. In 2005, with the opening of The Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD, the BSO became the nation’s first orchestra with year-round venues in two metropolitan areas. More information about the BSO can be found at BSOmusic.org.
About Markus Stenz:
Markus Stenz is principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and conductor-in-residence of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. He has appeared at many of the world’s major opera houses and international festivals.
Until the summer of 2014, he was Gurzenich-Kapellmeister and general music director of the City of Cologne, and principal guest conductor of the Halle. His previous positions have included artistic director and chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony, music director of the Montepulciano Festival and principal conductor of the London Sinfonietta.
Trained at the School of Music in Cologne under Volker Wangenheim and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa, Stenz has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Northern College of Music and the Silberne Stimmgabel (Silver Tuning Fork) of the state of North Rhein/Westphalia.
Recent engagements have taken Stenz all over the world, from São Paulo to Shanghai, conducting premieres and world premieres, including the German premiere of a cello concerto by Pascal Dusapin with cellist Alisa Weilerstein and an orchestral work by Dieter Ammann with the Tonhalle-Orchester
Zurich in June 2016.
Internationally, Stenz’s touring schedule takes him to the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra in Manchester and Leeds and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra on a tour throughout Japan performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Additional highlights include the world premiere of Kurtag’s Fin de Partie at Teatro alla Scala and Netherlands Opera, a new production of Schreker Die Gezeichneten at the Bayerische Staatsoper, return guest engagements with the Stavanger and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras and the National Centre for Performing Arts in China. Stenz also will conduct the Konzerthaus Orchestre Berlin in a recording which includes Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1.
His extensive discography was recently enlarged by the addition of the Dutch Premiere of K.A. Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus (Challenge Classics); the complete Mahler symphonies (Oehms Classics), which was selected among the Quarterly Critic’s Choice by the German Record Critics’ Award Association; as well as various Schoenberg recordings with the Gürzenich-Orchestra Cologne, which earned the 2016 Gramophone Classics Music Award for Best Choral Album.
