Manfred Honeck, Music Director and Conductor
In January 2007, after several highly successful guest appearances leading the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Manfred Honeck was appointed its ninth Music Director, and began this position at the start of the 2008–2009 season. In addition to his appointment in Pittsburgh, Mr. Honeck was music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2000 to 2006 and, in 2007, assumed the Music Director post of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. Beginning in September 2008, Mr. Honeck became Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague.
In 1996, Mr. Honeck began a three-year stint as one of three main conductors of the MDR Sinfonieorchester in Leipzig, and in 1997, he served as music director of the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo. A highly successful tour of Europe with the Oslo-Filharmonien marked the beginning of a close collaboration with this orchestra, which consequently appointed him principal guest conductor, a post he held from 1998 to 2004.
Manfred Honeck was born in Austria and studied music at the Academy of Music in Vienna. An accomplished violinist and violist, he spent more than 10 years as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, an experience that heavily influenced his conducting and gave it a distinctive stamp. Mr. Honeck commenced his conducting career as assistant to Claudio Abbado at the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in Vienna. Subsequently, he was engaged from 1991 to 1996 by the Opernhaus Zürich, where he won the prestigious European Conductor’s Award in 1993.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Honeck has worked with such major international orchestras as the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to the Staatsoper Stuttgart, Mr. Honeck has conducted at such major venues as the Semperoper in Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, and Royal Opera of Copenhagen, as well as at the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival. He appears regularly at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival, where he led a concert performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni with an international cast in 2009. Mr. Honeck has also been Artistic Director of the International Concerts Wolfegg summer music series in Germany for more than 15 years.
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has been an essential part of Pittsburgh’s cultural landscape for more than 100 years. Known for its artistic excellence, the PSO has a rich history of featuring the world’s finest conductors and musicians, as well as a strong commitment to the Pittsburgh region and its citizens. This tradition was furthered in fall 2008, when Austrian conductor Manfred Honeck assumed the position of Music Director.
Heading the list of internationally recognized conductors to have led the PSO is Victor Herbert, music director between 1898 and 1904, who influenced the orchestra’s early development. Preceding Herbert was Frederic Archer (1896 to 1899), the ensemble’s first conductor. The orchestra’s solidification as an American institution took place in the late 1930s under the direction of Otto Klemperer. Conductors prior to Klemperer were Emil Paur (1904 to 1910), Elias Breeskin (1926 to 1930), and Antonio Modarelli (1930 to 1937). From 1938 to 1948, under the dynamic directorship of Fritz Reiner, the orchestra embarked on a new phase of its history, making its first international tour and its first commercial recording.
The PSO’s standard of excellence was maintained and enhanced through the inspired leadership of William Steinberg during his quarter-century as music director between 1952 and 1976. André Previn (1976 to 1984) led the orchestra to new heights through tours, recordings, and television, including the PBS series Previn and the Pittsburgh. Lorin Maazel began his relationship with the PSO in 1984 as music consultant, but later served as a highly regarded music director from 1988 to 1996. As music director from 1997 to 2004, Mariss Jansons furthered the artistic growth of the orchestra; upon his departure, the PSO created an innovative leadership model with artistic advisor Sir Andrew Davis, principal guest conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier, and endowed guest conductor chair Marek Janowski. These three conductors formed the primary artistic leadership for the orchestra until January 2007, when the PSO selected Honeck to take the reins at the start of the 2008–2009 season.
With a long and distinguished history of touring both domestically and overseas since 1900, the PSO continues to be critically acclaimed as one of the world’s greatest orchestras. With more than 34 international tours, including 18 European tours, eight trips to the Far East, and two to South America, the PSO was the first American orchestra to perform at the Vatican in January 2004 for the late Pope John Paul II. For their most recent tour in September 2009, the orchestra toured Europe with stops in Essen and Bonn, Germany, before closing the prestigious Lucerne Festival in Switzerland.
The orchestra also enjoys an equally distinguished record of domestic tours, which over the years have included concerts in all of America’s major cities and music centers, including frequent performances at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
Starting with the release of its first commercial recording in 1941, the PSO has made hundreds of critically acclaimed recordings available on the PentaTone, EMI, Angel, CBS, Philips, MCA, New World, Nonesuch, Sony Classical, and Telarc labels.
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