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Adam Fischer

conductor

About this Artist

ADAM FISCHER was born in Budapest and attended the School of Music there, with further conducting and composition studies in Budapest and Vienna, with Hans Swarowsky. Awarded a joint first prize in the l973 Milan Cantelli Competition, he then held posts at Graz Opera, Karlsruhe, and Freiburg, where he was General Music Director. His association with the Vienna State Opera began that year. Between 1987 and 1992, Fischer was Music Director of Kassel Opera and in July 1989 he presented and conducted the first Gustav Mahler Festival (of which he is founder and Artistic Director) in Kassel. For this he created a new orchestra and obtained substantial support from the German government. This Festival continues to flourish. He conducts many productions for the Zurich Opera, with such international stars as Thomas Hampson, Edita Gruberova, and Cecilia Bartoli. Recent seasons have included L’anima del filosofo (Haydn), Cenerentola, and Matrimonio segreto (Cimarosa) and a revival of their highly-successful Linda di Chamounix, with Gruberova, for television. In January 1997 Fischer also took the Hungarian State Symphony to Athens for a fully-staged production of Verdi’s Macbeth.

Fischer has conducted many orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, l’Orchestre de Paris, the London Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the Danish Radio Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, and the Bamberg Symphony. He also enjoys a close association with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. His first Japanese tour was in l984; he has since returned regularly. Fischer made his Boston Symphony and Chicago Symphony debuts in 1984 and that year led the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra’s U.S. tour. In 1987, Adam Fischer initiated the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Festival and Orchestra in Eisenstadt, Austria; he is currently Music Director of the Orchestra. The Festival is now internationally established and draws leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists from around the world. With the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, he is currently recording the complete Haydn symphonies for Nimbus. Fischer has also recorded for CBS, EMI, Hungaroton, and Delta. His BBC TV film of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle with the LPO won the 1989 Italia Prize and the Royal Philharmonic Society and Charles Heidsieck prize for BBC Radio/TV/Video.

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