The Bamberg Symphony – Bavarian State Philharmonic has always enjoyed a special position in the musical world. Firmly rooted in its Upper Franconian home, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bamberg, it can nevertheless boast the uniquely high number and devoted support of more than 6,000 subscribers – in a city of just 70,000 inhabitants. Today as in the past, the Bamberg Symphony flies the city’s flag on the international concert stage and acts as "Bavaria’s Cultural Ambassador to the World" in the musical capitals of several continents. Standing invitations to important festivals and tours at home and abroad, awards for the Orchestra’s recordings, including recently the MIDEM Classical Award and the International "Toblach Composing Hut" Record Prize – all these only confirm the high reputation which the Bamberger Symphony enjoys the world over.
This reputation has been earned not least by the Principal and Guest Conductors who over the decades have presided over the Bamberg Symphony and have helped to shape its character. Since January 2000, the Orchestra’s artistic direction has been in the hands of Principal Conductor Jonathan Nott. In March 2006, Herbert Blomstedt took up another important post in Bamberg, that of Honorary Conductor; and from the start of the 2010/2011 season, they are joined by Robin Ticciati as Principal Guest Conductor.
Jonathan Nott’s time at the helm of this Orchestra, so steeped in tradition, has built with enormous success on the legacy of his predecessors, which he is carrying into the 21st Century. During his tenure he has conducted at the Salzburg Festival (2004), the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg (2007), the Beijing Music Festival (2008), at London’s Proms (2009) and the Gustav Mahler Music Week (2009). The Bamberg Symphony has played under him as Chief Conductor at the Edinburgh International Festival (2003), returning soon after for five further concerts as orchestra in residence (2005). In addition to a residence at Cologne’s Philharmonie (2008/2009), the Bavarian State Philharmonic appeared as orchestra in residence at the Lucerne Festival (2007), where Jonathan Nott was also "artiste étoile". Another highlight was their joint concert in honour of Pope Benedict XVI at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, on the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the Bishopric of Bamberg (2007).
Besides all this, the Bamberg Symphony and its British Principal Conductor are regular guests at Germany’s great Festivals such as musikfest berlin, Bonn’s Beethovenfest, the Schleswig-Holstein and Rheingau Music Festivals and the Summer Festival in Bad Kissingen. Not to mention the tours throughout Deutschland and Europe, three tours of Japan and as many of South America, and two to the USA which included appearances in such venues as New York’s Lincoln Center. In recent years outstanding musicians such as Vadim Repin, Truls Mřrk and Pierre-Laurent Aimard have collaborated as artists in residence with the Orchestra and have accompanied the Bamberg Symphony on national and international visits.
The coming season, 2010/2011, adds to this impressive list of concerts: after stops at Festivals in Berlin, Vienna and Bonn, to launch the season proper Jonathan Nott continues his series of appearances at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus; Orchestra and Chief Conductor will together honour the long tradition of visits abroad with concerts in Belgium and the Netherlands and once again take up the invitation to tour South America. Over the new year 2010/2011 the Bamberg Symphony and Jonathan Nott leave for China, visiting Beijing and Shenzhen, and their schedule also includes a concert in Zurich’s Tonhalle.
Other highlights of the 2010/2011 season include a visit to Munich’s Herkulessaal with Robin Ticciati, a tour of Spain with the Windsbach Boys’ Choir and the Bamberg Symphony’s first ever concert at La Scala in Milan, under Georges Prętre. Altogether, since its foundation, the Bamberg Symphony has played more than 6,000 concerts in 60 countries and 500-plus cities – on its twelve tours of Japan alone, the Orchestra was heard at 106 concerts.
Under Jonathan Nott, the Bamberg Symphony has recently branched out into very varied repertoire, although it is above all the music of Mahler which has received the Orchestra’s closest attention. The Bavarian State Philharmonic has long been celebrated as an outstanding Mahler orchestra, but the interpretations of Jonathan Nott and the Bamberg Symphony have caused a genuine sensation throughout the music world. Evidence of this has come in the form of the prestigious prizes which have crowned the Orchestra’s and Principal Conductor’s recordings of Mahler. So it is only fitting that, in this Mahler Year 2010, the Bamberg Symphony should devote an entire festival to the Austrian master: the Bamberg Biennale, the first of its kind, to be held in July 2010. With its theme of "Late Mahler" the festival will offer symphony, chamber and house concerts, framed by a series of supporting recitals and readings as well as a symposium on the period around 1910. Among the works to be performed are the Symphony No.8 ("Symphony of a Thousand"), Das Lied von der Erde, the Ninth Symphony and the Adagio from the incomplete Tenth.
The Bamberg Symphony’s home is Bamberg’s Konzerthalle, with its main hall the Joseph-Keilberth-Saal, which seats some 1,400 concert-goers. Inaugurated in 1993, it was extended in 2009 and thoroughly modernised, following a concept by the internationally renowned designer Peter Schmidt. The Joseph-Keilberth-Saal had already been acoustically optimised in 2008, on the basis of proposals by Yasuhisa Toyota, one of today’s leading acoustical designers.
Before 1993, the Orchestra’s home for over four decades had been Bamberg’s Dominican Church, used as a concert hall from 1950 onwards. The Bamberg Symphony itself had only recently been founded – its official debut, under the name Bamberger Tonkünstlerorchester, was in March 1946. The "kernel" of the Bamberg Symphony was a nucleus of ex-members of Prague’s German Philharmonic Orchestra, who found their way in the aftermath of war to the city on the River Regnitz. The link with Prague’s Orchestra makes Bamberg the inheritor of a musical tradition stretching back to the 19th and even 18th Centuries.
The Bamberg Symphony’s first Principal Conductor, in 1950, was Joseph Keilberth, former director of the German Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague. His importance in consolidating the Bamberg Symphony and raising its national and international profile cannot be overestimated. Under his tenure, which lasted until his death in 1968, the Bamberg Symphony remained faithful to the grand symphonic tradition, laid the foundations of its outstanding reputation and toured the concert halls of the world more than any other German ensemble. Not long after the end of World War II, it became the first German orchestra to tour Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa.
Joseph Keilberth’s successors in the Principal Conductor’s post were James Loughran (1979-1983) and Horst Stein (1985-1996), who was the second conductor in the Bamberg Symphony’s history to be accorded the title of Honorary Conductor. Many other great conductors have worked with the Orchestra and helped to create the characteristic sound which is now so much a part of the Bamberg Symphony: among them were Rudolf Kempe, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss, Sir Georg Solti, Christoph von Dohnányi, Witold Rowicki, Günter Wand, Witold Lutosławski, Ingo Metzmacher, Giuseppe Sinopoli und Christoph Eschenbach, as well as the Bamberg Symphony’s first Honorary Conductor, Eugen Jochum; and its current Honorary Conductor, Herbert Blomstedt, has formed a very close bond over three decades with the Bavarian State Philharmonic and its home city.
The Bamberg Symphony enjoys a worldwide reputation not only as a concert orchestra but also as a centre for the training of young musicians. The Bamberg Symphony’s Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition was launched in 2004 and immediately won a global reputation as a crucible for the forging of new talent. For the first winner in 2004, the young Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel, the Competition was the springboard for a truly meteoric rise, while for Shi-Yeon Sung of South Korea, winner of the second Competition in 2007, it proved an important milestone in her international career. The third event in 2010 saw the Latvian Ainārs Rubiķis emerge with the top prize and promptly receive invitations from the Edinburgh International Festival and the Kremerata Baltica. He’ll be back in Bamberg very soon, as a guest artist at the 2010 Bamberg Biennale, followed a few months later by his first Subscription Concert with the Bamberg Symphony. And starting in the 2010/2011 season, another project dedicated to training music’s next generation gets underway: the Bamberg Symphony’s recently founded Orchestral Academy.
The Bamberg Symphony’s collaboration with Bavarian Radio goes back to the 1950s and continues to this day in the closest of partnerships. Countless concert relays, studio recordings and co-productions of commercial LPs and CDs have not only enriched Bavarian Radio’s schedules but have brought the added benefit of building and consolidating the Bamberg Symphony’s reputation. There are real treasures both in the sound archive and among the commercially published records, such as the 1964 recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde under Joseph Keilberth, with two of the 20th Century’s greatest singers, Fritz Wunderlich and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, or Rudolf Kempe’s 1962 performance of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, again with Fritz Wunderlich, still considered a benchmark interpretation.
Under Jonathan Nott’s direction, and always in cooperation with Bavarian Radio and the Swiss label Tudor, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra has taken part in many CD productions. Together they have recorded all of Schubert’s Symphonies, coupled with contemporary works on the theme of "Schubert" by composers such as Henze, Rihm, Widmann and Mantovani. Other recordings include the first version of Bruckner’s Third Symphony and works by Janáček and Stravinsky. So far the cycle of Mahler’s Symphonies has produced recordings of Nos.1, 2, 4, and 9. The CD of the Ninth Symphony won several prestigious prizes, such as the International "Toblach Composing Hut" Record Prize for 2009 and the MIDEM Classical Award in 2010.
The Bamberg Symphony’s extensive discography also includes a whole series of cycles devoted to other great composers, such as Schubert, Brahms and Reger (Horst Stein), Schumann (Christoph Eschenbach), Mendelssohn (Claus Peter Flor), Raff (Hans Stadlmair), Richard Strauss (Karl Anton Rickenbacher), Pfitzner (Werner Andreas Albert) and Hartmann (Ingo Metzmacher). Just out is the first CD with Robin Ticciati, conducting works by Brahms for chorus and orchestra.
In July 2003 the Bavarian State Government elevated the Bamberg Symphony to the rank of State orchestra, since when it has been entitled to add to its name the designation of Bavarian State Philharmonic. In addition, in early 2005 the Orchestra’s status was changed by law into that of a charitable foundation. As the Bamberg Symphony – Bavarian State Philharmonic Foundation, it enjoys continued financial support from the Free State of Bavaria, the City of Bamberg, the Province of Upper Franconia and the Bamberg Region.
