1. Michael Andreas Gielen was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert.
25 Facts About Michael Gielen
1. 2.
Michael Gielen first worked in Buenos Aires, where he lived with his family between 1938 and 1950.
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Michael Gielen directed the Oper Frankfurt from 1977 to 1987, installing more contemporary operas, winning stage directors such as Hans Neuenfels and Ruth Berghaus, and reviving operas such as Schreker's Die Gezeichneten.
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Michael Gielen's works were premiered with performers such as Joan Carroll, Siegfried Palm, Aloys Kontarsky and the LaSalle Quartet.
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Michael Gielen was born in Dresden to Rose and Josef Michael Gielen.
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Michael Gielen's mother Rose came from a Jewish family in Sambor.
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Michael Gielen was an actress who had given up acting when their first child Carola was born, but appeared occasionally, for example as a speaker in the premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire in Dresden in 1919, rehearsed with her brother Eduard Steuermann.
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The boy Michael Gielen first attended a reformed school from 1934 until it was closed by the Nazis.
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Clemens Krauss called Josef Gielen to the Staatsoper Berlin in 1936, where Michael attended primary school for a year, and then the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium.
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Josef Michael Gielen successfully staged at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1938 and 1939, and managed to get immigration papers for his wife and the two children.
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Michael Gielen began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter.
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In 1950, Michael Gielen moved to Vienna where his father had become director of the Burgtheater.
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Michael Gielen was conductor and repetiteur, who conducted at the Wiener Staatsoper from 1954 to 1960, assisting conductors such as Karl Bohm, Herbert von Karajan and Clemens Krauss.
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Michael Gielen took to freelance conducting in 1965, including the premiere of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's opera Die Soldaten in Cologne that year, a work that had been deemed to be impossible to perform.
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Michael Gielen premiered Aribert Reimann's opera Ein Traumspiel on 20 June 1965 at the Opernhaus Kiel.
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Michael Gielen then had a contract with the Netherlands Opera.
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From 1977 to 1987, Michael Gielen was GMD at the Oper Frankfurt, where he worked with the dramaturge Klaus Zehelein towards more contemporary operas.
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Michael Gielen was principal conductor of the Belgian National Orchestra and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
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Michael Gielen was from 1986 to 1999 the conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, and made it known as the leading orchestra for premieres, notably at the Donaueschinger Musiktage.
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Michael Gielen premiered Zimmermann's Requiem fur einen jungen Dichter in Dusseldorf in 1969.
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In October 2014, Michael Gielen announced his retirement from conducting for health reasons, particularly seriously deteriorated eyesight.
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Michael Gielen died in Mondsee, Austria, on 8 March 2019 of pneumonia.
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Michael Gielen began to compose in 1946, and kept composing throughout his career as a conductor.
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Michael Gielen was influenced by the tradition of the Second Viennese School, and his small oeuvre includes settings of poems by Hans Arp, Paul Claudel, Stefan George, and Pablo Neruda.
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Michael Gielen's compositions are listed by the Akademie der Kunste:.