The Cleveland Orchestra
Orchestras
Under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst since 2002, The Cleveland Orchestra has become one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world. In concerts at its winter home at Severance Hall and each summer as part of the Blossom Festival, in residencies from Miami to Vienna, and on tour around the world, The Cleveland Orchestra sets standards of artistic excellence, imaginative programming, and community engagement.
The Cleveland Orchestra was founded in 1918 by a group of local citizens and soon became one of the premier orchestras in the country. Since then, it has been led by seven music directors (Nikolai Sokoloff 1918-33, Artur Rodzinski 1933-43, Erich Leinsdorf 1943-46, George Szell 1946-70, Lorin Maazel 1972-82, Christoph von Dohnányi 1984-2002, and Franz Welser-Möst, 2002-present), and one musical advisor (Pierre Boulez 1970-72). During its first decade, the Orchestra performed at Masonic Auditorium and other venues across Cleveland before constructing a permanent home, the gracious Severance Hall, completed in 1931. In 1968, the Orchestra opened the outdoor Blossom Music Center in nearby Cuyahoga Falls and expanded to a year-round performance schedule.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s educational programs, a cornerstone of the Orchestra’s original mission, have introduced nearly four million Cleveland-area schoolchildren to orchestral music since 1921. In the 2009-2010 season, the Orchestra launched a broad-based Community Music Initiative designed to provide greater access to orchestral music for citizens of Northeast Ohio and featuring orchestral performances led by Franz Welser-Möst in Cleveland Metropolitan School District public schools.
The partnership with Franz Welser-Möst has earned the Orchestra high-profile residencies in the United States and in Europe, including one at the Musikverein in Vienna ― the first of its kind by an American orchestra. The Orchestra regularly appears at European festivals and has an ongoing series of biennial residencies at the Lucerne Festival. Mr. Welser-Möst and the Orchestra have performed throughout Europe and Canada and have toured the U.S. from coast to coast, including regular performances at Carnegie Hall. In January 2007, they began an unprecedented long-term residency project in Miami, Florida, where they perform annually at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County and provide a wide array of community and educational activities. A new residency with the New York's Lincoln Center Festival begins in 2011.
The Cleveland Orchestra also has a long and distinguished recording and broadcast history, with DVD and CD recordings under the direction of Franz Welser-Möst adding to an extensive and widely praised catalogue of audio recordings made during the tenures of the ensemble’s former music directors. The most recent additions to this collection include DVDs of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, recorded during concerts at Severance Hall; Bruckner’s Symphony 5, recorded in Bruckner’s church, the Abbey of St. Florian in Austria; and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9, recorded in Vienna’s Musikverein. And, continuing a tradition of radio broadcasts begun in 1922, Cleveland Orchestra concerts are heard in syndication on radio stations throughout North America and Europe. Today, live concerts at Severance Hall, Blossom and community venues, plus touring, residencies, radio broadcasts, and recordings available by internet download and on DVD and CD give The Cleveland Orchestra a broad and loyal constituency around the world.
Season 2009/2010
FRANZ WELSER-MÖST
Franz Welser-Möst is in his eighth year as Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra. His long-term commitment extends to the Orchestra’s centennial in 2018. Under his direction, the Orchestra holds residencies in the United States and Europe, champions living composers, partners with Northeast Ohio public schools and conservatories, and has re-established itself as an operatic ensemble. Concurrently with his post in Cleveland, Mr. Welser-Möst becomes General Music Director of the Vienna State Opera in the autumn of 2010.
Under Mr. Welser-Möst’s leadership, The Cleveland Orchestra holds ongoing residencies at Vienna’s famed Musikverein hall and Switzerland’s Lucerne Festival, along with an annual Miami Residency. In 2011, Mr. Welser-Möst and the Orchestra launch a biennial residency at New York’s Lincoln Center Festival, featuring The Cleveland Orchestra in Vienna State Opera productions.
Under Franz Welser-Möst, The Cleveland Orchestra has presented eleven world and fourteen United States premieres. In 2009, Mr. Welser-Möst led a Zurich Opera production of The Marriage of Figaro at Severance Hall. He and The Cleveland Orchestra will continue the Mozart/Da Ponte operas in Cleveland with Mozart’s Così fan tutte in 2009-10 and Don Giovanni in 2010-11.
Recent and upcoming international engagements include a new production of Wagner’s Ring cycle with stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf at the Vienna State Opera. During the 2009-10 season, Mr. Welser-Möst leads additional Ring performances, as well as Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Parsifal, with the Vienna State Opera. In the summer of 2009, Franz Welser-Möst appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms, and the Lucerne Festival. He also conducted the Berlin Philharmonic at the 2009 Salzburg Easter Festival.
Following his 1989 American debut and prior to his appointment in Cleveland, Mr. Welser-Möst regularly guest-conducted the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia. Mr. Welser-Möst was music director of the London Philharmonic from 1990 to 1996. Across his decade-long tenure with the Zurich Opera, culminating in three seasons as General Music Director (2005-08), Mr. Welser-Möst led more than 40 new productions. In the spring of 2010, he leads Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and Mozart’s Così fan tutte in Zurich.
Mr. Welser-Möst’s recordings and videos have won the Gramophone Award, Diapason d’Or, Japanese Record Academy Award, and two Grammy nominations. Mr. Welser-Möst has led The Cleveland Orchestra in video recordings of live performances of the Bruckner Symphonies Nos. 5, 7, and 9. Mr. Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra released a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Deutsche Grammophon in 2007.
Mr. Welser-Möst has been recognized by the Western Law Center for Disability Rights and is an honorary member of the Vienna Singverein. Musical America named him the 2003 Conductor of the Year.
Season 2009/2010
