LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA • 4 NOVEMBER 2020
TONIGHT'S ARTISTS THIERRY FISCHER CONDUCTOR
© Marco Borggreve
parks and forged outreach links in Haiti. In celebration of its 75th anniversary season in 2016, he took the orchestra to New York’s Carnegie Hall for the first time in 40 years and released a CD of newly commissioned works by Nico Muhly, Andrew Norman and Augusta Read Thomas.
Thierry Fischer has been Music Director of the Utah Symphony since 2009 and will finish his final term in summer 2023, becoming Music Director Emeritus. He has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic since 2017, with his contract extended to the end of 2020. In March 2020 he began a new position as Music Director of the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. Fischer made his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in October 2015, when he conducted a programme of Bizet, Ravel and Saint-Saëns’s ‘Organ’ Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall. He returned in March 2018 for a programme including Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms with the LPO and London Philharmonic Choir, alongside works by Stravinsky. Fischer has led the Utah Symphony in composer cycles including Mahler, Ives and Nielsen; he has also released acclaimed performances of Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 8 on Reference Records, the latter with the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 2019 saw the first release of a Saint-Saëns symphony cycle on Hyperion as part of an ongoing collaboration (also to excellent reviews). He has conducted the orchestra in Utah’s five national
For his inaugural concerts in São Paulo, Fischer conducted Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the OSESP Orchestra and Chorus to launch their 2020 Beethoven season. Last season’s highlights also included three back-to-back Beethoven programmes with the Brussels Philharmonic; at the Southbank Centre he conducted works by Tristan Murail with the London Sinfonietta and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. As well as concerts with his titled orchestras, plans for autumn 2020 include Bach and Stravinsky in Stavanger, Saint-Saëns with the Bournemouth Symphony, and Haydn and Prokofiev with the Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire. As Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales from 2006–12, Fischer appeared every year at the BBC Proms, toured internationally, and recorded for Hyperion, Signum and Orfeo. In 2014 he released a Beethoven disc with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on the Aparte label. Thierry Fischer began his career as Principal Flute in Hamburg and at the Zurich Opera. His conducting career began in his 30s when he replaced an ailing colleague, subsequently directing his first few concerts with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, where he was Principal Flute under Claudio Abbado. He spent his apprentice years in Holland and became Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Ulster Orchestra (2001–06). He was Chief Conductor of the Nagoya Philharmonic from 2008–11, making his Suntory Hall debut in Tokyo in May 2010, and is now Honorary Guest Conductor. –4–
