Gustav Meier was a Swiss-born conductor and director of the Orchestra Conducting Program at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
18 Facts About Gustav Meier
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Gustav Meier was Music Director of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut, for more than 40 years.
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Gustav Meier earned international acclaim as both an exceptional conductor and a truly gifted teacher.
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Gustav Meier began his career at the Lucerne Opera, followed by several seasons at the Vienna Chamber Opera and the Zurich Opera.
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Gustav Meier led orchestras around the globe including the Zurich Tonhalle, Sao Paulo, China National, Pittsburgh, Colorado and Alabama Symphony Orchestras; New York City, Santa Fe, Miami, San Francisco, Zurich, and Minnesota Opera Companies; and the Budapest and Vienna State Opera Orchestras.
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From 1978 to 2006, Gustav Meier was music director and conductor of the Greater Lansing Symphony Orchestra in Lansing, Michigan.
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Gustav Meier served as director of the Graduate Conducting Program at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.
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Gustav Meier has served on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center from 1980 to 1996 where he spent the summers overseeing Tanglewood's prestigious Conducting Seminar.
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Gustav Meier was a member of one of the most remarkable conducting classes in the Tanglewood Music Center's history, one that included Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta and David Zinman.
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Gustav Meier regularly taught conducting master classes across North America, Europe and Asia.
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Gustav Meier's students have appeared with every major orchestra and opera company in the United States and abroad, some currently serving as music directors of illustrious musical institutions.
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Gustav Meier was born in Wettingen, Switzerland, a small town on the Limmat River eight miles from German Border.
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Gustav Meier's father played the cornet in the Swiss cavalry as well as the local band and was thrilled to have his son show musical talent and signed him up for lessons with his childhood band instructor.
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Gustav Meier returned to Europe in 1955 to study conducting in Vienna.
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Gustav Meier went on to the Tanglewood Conductors workshop in 1957, and after a stint as Assistant Conductor to the Zurich Opera and freelancing in New York City, in 1960 he took a faculty position in charge of orchestra, taught orchestration and conducting at Yale University.
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Gustav Meier stayed at Yale for more than a dozen years and the family spent summers at Yale's summer music program in Norfolk, CT.
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Gustav Meier left Yale to go to Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York.
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In 1976, Gustav Meier left Eastman to be Professor of Conducting at University of Michigan and moved to Ann Arbor where they remained until Gustav Meier's death in 2016.