A frequent guest with the world's leading orchestras, Kurt Masur made his United States debut in 1974 with the Cleveland Orchestra; also that year he took the Gewandhaus Orchestra on its first American tour. He made his New York Philharmonic debut in 1981. Maestro Masur returns every season to the United States to conduct the major American orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C. In Europe, Maestro Masur works with such orchestras as the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Orchestras of Teatro La Scala and La Fenice, the London Philharmonic and many others.
In July 2007, Maestro Masur celebrated his 80th birthday in an extraordinary concert at the BBC Proms in London where he conducted joint forces of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France.
Education is very important to Maestro Masur. He often conducts youth orchestras and gives master classes. During the 2007/2008 season, Maestro Masur will return for master classes to the Manhattan School of Music in New York and to Bonn to continue his course on the art of conducting Beethoven that started in the 2006/2007 season.
Maestro Masur's first recording together with the ONF of Beethoven's Symphonies No. 2 and 6 came out on the label Naïve in March 2004. Subsequently, Maestro Masur and the ONF brought out on CD, Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5; and by Sostakovich its 7th Symphony and his 2 Violin Concertos with the young Armenian violinist, Sergey Kachatryan again on the Naïve label. Mr. Masur made more than thirty recordings with the New York Philharmonic for Teldec Classics International, two of those winning "Record of the Year" awards from Stereo review (Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13, Babi Yar, and Mahler's Ninth Symphony). For Deutsche Grammophon, he, the New York Philharmonic, and Anne-Sophie Mutter recorded a Grammy nominated album of Brahms and Schumann and most recently of Beethoven's Violin Concerto and two romances. Mr. Masur has made well over 100 other recordings with numerous orchestras, including the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Tchaikovsky. With the London Philharmonic, The Orchestra and the Maestro created their own record label and recently released recordings of Shostakovich Symphonies No. 1 and 5 and the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten.
Born in Brieg, Silesia, in 1927, Mr. Masur studied piano, composition, and conducting at the Music College of Leipzig. In 1948 he was designated Orchestra Coach at the Halle County Theater, and later became Kapellmeister of the Erfurt and Leipzig Opera theaters. He accepted his first major orchestral appointment in 1955, as Conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic. He returned to opera in 1958 as General Director of Music at the Mecklenburg State Theater of Schwerin. From 1960 to 1964 Mr. Masur was Senior Director of Music at Berlin's Komische Oper, collaborating with influential director-producer Walter Felsenstein. In 1967 he was appointed the Dresden Philharmonic's Chief Conductor, a post he held until 1972. In his capacity as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Kapellmeister, he led nearly a thousand performances between 1970 and 1996 and more than 900 concerts on tour.
Maestro Masur has been a professor at the Leipzig Academy of Music since 1975 and holds honorary degrees from the Breslau Academy of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, Colgate University, Hamilton College, Indiana University, The Juilliard School, Leipzig University, the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Michigan, Westminster Choir College, SUNY Binghampton, and Yale University. In 2008 he will celebrate 60 years as a professional conductor.
Editor: Feng Hui
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