Thomas Zehetmair
Thomas Zehetmair has fashioned a highly successful and broadly eclectic career. He is a virtuoso violinist of international repute, a chamber player who has founded a critically acclaimed quartet, a conductor of front-rank status, and a musician whose repertory in any role reaches from Baroque-era fare to the contemporary. As of the mid-2020s, Zehetmair held the conductorships of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National d'Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and the Irish Chamber Orchestra. He also holds the title of conductor laureate of the Royal Northern Sinfonia.
Zehetmair was born in Salzburg, Austria, on November 23, 1961. He began violin lessons at five with his parents, both talented violinists. His advanced studies were at the Salzburg Mozarteum under his father, Helmut. He took further instruction on the violin from Nathan Milstein and Max Rostal. Zehetmair made his recording debut in the late '70s with a recording of music by Mozart and worked busily at establishing an international reputation throughout the '80s, and, by 1990, he regularly appeared to acclaim at major concert venues from New York to Berlin to Tokyo. In 1993, he took on his first conducting post when he became co-director of the Camerata Bern. The following year, he founded the Zehetmair Quartet, consequently dividing his time among solo performances, chamber concerts, and conducting.
His repertoire spans from Baroque-era fare, particularly Bach, up through Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, and extending to Bartók, Schoenberg, and Berg, as well as to contemporary composers such as Heinz Holliger, Valentin Silvestrov, and Wilhelm Killmayer. In the concertos of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and other pre-modern composers, Zehetmair often provides his own cadenzas, and in these works and those of Bach, he frequently appears as soloist while conducting the orchestra. He employs historic performance practices in early works, having studied such details with Nikolaus Harnoncourt. In the chamber realm, he has collaborated with world-class musicians, including pianists Alfred Brendel and Cyprien Katsaris and violinist Gidon Kremer. As a soloist, Zehetmair has appeared with leading orchestras across the globe, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the NHK Symphony (Tokyo), and the Boston Symphony, among many others.
Zehetmair was the music director of the Northern Sinfonia from 2002 to 2014 (renamed the Royal Northern Sinfonia in 2013), after which he was named conductor laureate. He was the music director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris from 2012 to 2014. From 2016 to 2021, he was the principal conductor of the Musikkollegium Winterthur. Zehetmair took up the post of chief conductor of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra in 2019, followed shortly by an appointment as the principal conductor of the Orchestre National d'Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, beginning in 2021. The following year, he was named the principal conductor and artistic director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
Zehetmair has made numerous recordings spread over a variety of labels, including EMI, Philips, and Warner Classics. In 2019, he issued an album of Bach's solo sonatas and partitas for violin on ECM New Series and led the Musikkollegium Winterthur on a recording of Brahms' Symphonies. He returned to ECM New Series in 2023 with violist Ruth Killius and the Royal Northern Sinfonia on a recording of music by Bartók, Beethoven, and John Casken.
© Robert Cummings & Keith Finke /TiVo
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Beethoven: Violin Concerto; 2 Romances
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestra Of The 18th Century, Frans Brüggen
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on Jan 1, 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Robert Schumann (Live)
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestre de chambre de Paris
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Oct 18, 2002
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schönberg, Veress, Bartók: Verklärte Nacht
Thomas Zehetmair, Camerata Bern
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Mar 9, 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Holliger: Lieder ohne Worte
Thomas Zehetmair, Thomas Larcher, Ursula Holliger
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Sep 1, 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Niccolò Paganini: 24 Capricci per violino solo, Op.1
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Aug 25, 2009
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concertos pour violon n° 1 et 2
Thomas Zehetmair, City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle, Silke Avenhaus
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on May 30, 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Sei Solo - The Sonatas and Partitas
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Nov 15, 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Holliger: Violinkonzert "Hommage à Louis Soutter"
Thomas Zehetmair, Heinz Holliger, SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Jun 17, 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Zimmermann: Canto Di Speranza
Thomas Zehetmair, Thomas Demenga, Heinz Holliger, WDR Sinfonieorchester
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Nov 14, 2008
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Manto And Madrigals
Thomas Zehetmair, Ruth Killius
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Feb 18, 2011
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Lauds And Lamentations - Music Of Elliott Carter And Isang Yun
Heinz Holliger, Thomas Zehetmair, Ruth Killius, Thomas Demenga
Classical - Released by ECM Records on Apr 7, 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Partitas and Sonatas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001 - 1006
Classical - Released by Warner Classics International on Jan 1, 1983
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Adams: Shaker Loops: I. Shaking and Trembling
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by SKO RECORDS on Oct 27, 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, K. 216: II. Adagio
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by SKO RECORDS on Feb 23, 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Unknown Britten
Sandrine Piau, Michael Collins, Rolf Hind, Northern Sinfonia, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by NMC Recordings on Oct 6, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
BACH, J.S.: Violin Concertos, BWV 1041, 1042, 1052, 1056 (Zehetmair, Amsterdam Bach Soloists)
Classical - Released by Berlin Classics on Oct 31, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Richard Dubugnon: Klavieriana, Op. 70 & Chamber Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2
Noriko Ogawa, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by BIS on Apr 9, 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
BARTOK, B: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (Zehetmair, Budapest Festival Orchestra, I. Fischer)
Violin Concertos - Released by Berlin Classics on Jan 1, 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Concertos pour violon
Classical - Released by Brilliant Classics on Jan 1, 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sibelius: Symphony No. 3 & Symphony No. 6 - Stravinsky: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Classical - Released by Avie Records on May 14, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Partita for Violin Solo No. 1 in B Minor, BWV 1002: 1. Allemanda
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on Oct 11, 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo