QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Maestro: Johannes Fritzsch

Even in his first engagement with The Queensland Orchestra, one music critic commented on the fine balance of the parts and on the “glowing refined“ tone he was able to elicit from the strings. Fritzsch asserted that under his leadership the orchestra could “go far and fast”. His approach to programming reflected a European emphasis within the standard repertoire, with a return to composers such as Mahler, who had not been heard in Brisbane for some years. It has been popular with audiences and he intends to continue this approach. As Chief Conductor he spends 12 weeks each year with the orchestra. He is also Chief Conductor of the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra and Graz Opera, a position which he took up in 2006. He therefore spends part of the year in Europe, leaving his Australian wife and three children in Sydney. Johannes Fritzsch is enthusiastic about the quality of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, which he asserts can compete on equal terms with any other Australian orchestras. He believes that Queensland, which is better known for its tourist attractions, is very fortunate to have an orchestra of such high quality, and he is clearly proud to lead it.

Maestro Johannes Fritzsch is Chief Conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. He was appointed to this position in July 2007 for a three year term extending from 2008 to 2010. The orchestra was at that time known as The Queensland Orchestra, but has since reverted to its former name as the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. His tenure with the orchestra has been extended to the end of 2013. Johannes Fritzsch was born in 1960 into a musical family. His father was an organist and cantor, and was his first teacher of piano and organ. Born and raised in Meissen, he spent the first twenty nine years of his life in East Germany until the reunification of Germany. The political influence on social and artistic life with which he grew up has given him an appreciation of the freedom and absence of artistic constraint which he experiences in the west and especially in Australia. His first venture in Australian musical life was in 1992, when he conducted a production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel for Opera Australia. He also made a recording of the Richard Strauss tone poems with The Queensland Orchestra, giving him an appreciation for its potential when he came to lead it some years later. He undertook his formal musical studies at the Carl Maria von Weber Musical Academy in Dresden, studying piano, conducting and trumpet. His early career included appointments as Kapellmeister for the Rostock Volkstheater (1982), the Dresden Staatsoper (1987-1992), and the Hannover Staatsoper (1992-1993). In five years at Dresden he conducted 350 performances. From 1993 to 1999 he was the Musical Director and Chief Conductor of Städtische Bühnen and the Philharmonic Orchestra in Freiburg. He also spent a time as General Music Director of Staatsoper Nürnberg . He has conducted operas in Dresden, Köln, Berlin ( Deutsches Oper and Komisches Oper ), Paris, Graz and Stockholm and for Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne. As well as leading Queensland and Australian orchestras, he has conducted in Germany and France and radio orchestras in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. He came to The Queensland Orchestra soon after its formation with the amalgamation of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra

and the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra. Much progress had been made blending the individual characters of the two orchestras, and he believed in the potential of an outstanding ensemble. He was able to fill many vacancies with young musicians of excellent calibre, and this brought new energy and enhanced the quality of the orchestra.

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