It is with great sadness that the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester has to announce the passing away of its board member Prof. Alfred Altenburger, aged 88 years, in Vienna.

A long-time board member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Prof. Alfred Altenburger was Head of Strings of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester until 2008, he was responsible for the auditions of all string players and was coaching the first violins between 1995-2008, and he was also coaching all GMJO strings in many chamber music projects at our residencies, including the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Lucerne Festival at Easter, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Cité de la Musique Paris, the Festival d´Art Lyrique d´Aix-en-Provence, the Bolzano Festival Bozen, the Vienna Musikverein, and others.

During his tenure, concertmasters of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester include such eminent musicians as Antonello Manacorda, Renaud Capuçon, Vahid Khadem-Missagh, Andreas Neufeld, Raphael Christ, Franz-Markus Siegert, and Carolina Kurkowski-Perez.

He worked closely with our Founder and Music Director Claudio Abbado and with all guest conductors of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, including Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, Myung-Whun Chung, Sir Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Iván Fischer, Daniele Gatti, Mariss Jansons, Philippe Jordan, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Seiji Ozawa, and Franz Welser-Möst.

Appointed by Claudio Abbado, with whom he enjoyed a life-long friendship, he was the founding Artistic Director of the Gustav Mahler Academy - Fondazione Musica e Gioventù, in Bolzano.

A member of the Vienna Philharmonic for many years, he was speaker ("Vorstand") of this orchestra between 1978 and 1987, and he founded, together with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, his later wife Alice Hoffelner and Eduard Melkus, the "Wiener Gamben Quartett" in 1949.

Generations of violin and string players of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester were selected, coached and most warmly guided by Prof. Alfred Altenburger, and he was truly revered by all of them, as by all his colleagues, all conductors and soloists, all board members, management, and staff.

We shall always remember Prof. Alfred Altenburger with deepest respect, gratitude, and love, and we join his family in mourning this extraordinary personality. His legacy will live on in many future generations of GMJO musicians. May he rest in peace.

Photo credit: Archive GMJO

Herbert Blomstedt resumes his successful collaboration with the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER on the Summer Tour 2015, conducting the orchestra for the fourth time already since 2008. He has most recently conducted the GMJO in 2013 and continues his series of Bruckner symphonies with one of the cycle’s most complex works, Symphony No. 8 in C minor. The second programme of the tour combines Mozart’s late Symphony No. 39 in E-flat major K. 543 with Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor op. 95.

After the opening concert at the Bolzano Festival Bozen, where the GMJO is in residence, the orchestra will guest appear at the Ravello Festival for the first time. Performances at the Lucerne Festival and the Frauenkirche in Dresden, where the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER has established a close partnership with the Sächsische Staatskapelle in 2012, are followed by concerts at the Salzburg Festival, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Rheingau Festival. A second concert in Bolzano and the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER’S debut in Pordenone conclude the Summer Tour 2015.

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Photo: Matthias Creutziger

 With generous support from the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, and in close collaboration with the Salzburg Festival and Universal Edition, this ambitious project was filmed by Myriam Hoyer, from the first rehearsals in Bolzano / Bozen to the world premiere concert in Salzburg; Wolfgang Rihm and Christoph Eschenbach talk about this fascinating new piece, and you can join the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in discovering, rehearsing and performing Wolfgang Rihm´s Piano Concerto No. 2.

Uploads start on Friday 15 May 2015; every Friday, one video clip will be uploaded:

https://www.youtube.com/user/gmjugendorchester

These High Definition video clips are free, and you are invited to forward, share and comment. Visit our friends and partners, too.

 

The Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester warmly congratulates Christoph Eschenbach on the Ernst-von-Siemens-Musikpreis 2015. 

Also regarded as the „Nobel Prize for Music“, the Ernst-von-Siemens-Musikpreis 2015 honours the achievements of both the great conductor and the outstanding pianist Christoph Eschenbach, his life-long support for contemporary music and young musicians. 

Previous award winners include Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, GMJO founder and life-long Music Director Claudio Abbado, Benjamin Britten, Henri Dutilleux, Hans Werner Henze, and Wolfgang Rihm.

Christoph Eschenbach led the Summer Tour 2014 of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester which included the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm´s Piano Concerto no. 2 at the Salzburg Festival.

Bravo, dear Christoph Eschenbach!

Photo: Gregor Khuen Belasi

The Wiener Festwochen 2015 programme was announced on 17 December 2014 by festival director Markus Hinterhäuser: the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester will perform Béla Bartók's Bluebeard’s Castle under the direction of Kent Nagano. The Production is by Andrea Breth, her very first opera production in Vienna, with Gábor Bretz as Bluebeard and Nora Gubisch as Judith. The four performances at the Theater an der Wien, between 19 - 25 June 2015, mark the debut of the GMJO at the Wiener Festwochen.

This is the third scenic opera production of the GMJO, after Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle with Pierre Boulez in a production by Pina Bausch at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 1998, and Richard Wagner’s Parsifal with Claudio Abbado in a production by Peter Stein at the Edinburgh Festival 2002. More recently, the GMJO had a huge success with concert performances of Wagner’s Rienzi under Philippe Jordan at the Salzburg Festival 2013.

Kent Nagano returns as guest conductor of the GMJO after having led the Easter Tour 1998.

To know more, follow the link to the Wiener Festwochen website.

Photo: Wiener Festwochen