Erich Kunzel
In a remarkable 40-year association in Cincinnati, Erich Kunzel’s accomplishments are almost too numerous to list. Beginning with his invitation by Max Rudolf in 1965 to conduct the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to being named Conductor of the Cincinnati Pops in 1977, Maestro Kunzel’s credits include an unprecedented catalog of 79 Pops recordings on the Telarc label; four consecutive years as Billboard Magazine’s Classical Crossover Artist of the Year; seven nationally televised Pops specials on PBS; and national and international appearances with the Pops including 10 Carnegie Hall concerts, two tours to Taiwan and three tours to Japan.
The 28th season of the Cincinnati Pops led by Erich Kunzel begins with the September 2005 release of the orchestra’s 80th Telarc recording, Symphonic Music of Howard Hanson. Mr. Kunzel’s 2005-06 season also is marked by an artistic milestone—his 40th anniversary with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In honor of this special anniversary, Mr. Kunzel will lead three consecutive concerts October 7, 8 and 9—two CSO subscription concerts with renowned mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and the May Festival Chorus—and a Pops concert with legendary pianist and composer Dave Brubeck. The Cincinnati Pops under Maestro Kunzel also will be the first professional American Pops orchestra to tour China when they perform two concerts in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in October. The tour also includes a concert in Shanghai and two concerts in Singapore.
It was in October 1965 that Max Rudolf, the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, invited Erich Kunzel to conduct an 8 O’Clock Pops concert at Music Hall. That sold-out concert with Dave Brubeck as soloist was the beginning of a relationship with concert audiences that inspired the CSO Board of Trustees to officially establish the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in 1977 with Erich Kunzel as its conductor. The Cincinnati Pops is firmly established as one of the world's most active classical pops ensembles, maintaining a year-round performing and recording schedule and reaching music lovers worldwide through tour performances, television specials and best-selling Telarc recordings.
The 79th Telarc/Pops collaboration, Rózsa: Three Choral Suites, was released in March 2005 to critical acclaim. Ken Smith wrote in the July 2005 issue of Gramophone, "One would have to think hard to conceive of a more memorable performance of these works."
Erich Kunzel is the most successful Billboard Classical Crossover recording artist in history. In 1991, Billboard named him the Classical Crossover Artist of the Year for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year. Of the 79 Cincinnati Pops Telarc releases, 54 have appeared on either the Classical Crossover or Classical Billboard charts. "When it comes to topping the charts, no orchestra does it better than the Cincinnati Pops," said Ohio Magazine (February 2003).
The Pops recording, Copland: Music of America, earned a Grammy Award as "Best Engineered Album, Classical" in 1997. In addition, Robert Woods, the Telarc President who produces
Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops albums, was named as "Producer of the Year, Classical" for the Pops’ A Celtic Spectacular and Scary Music in 2002. Five other recordings have received Grammy nominations, and American Jubilee was awarded France’s Grand Prix du Disque in 1989.
In May 2006, Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops will film their eighth PBS special. He has led the Cincinnati Pops in seven holiday-themed PBS specials through the years including "Patriotic Broadway" in 2003 and "Fourth of July From the Heartland," which was televised live nationally on July 4, 2000 from Riverbend Music Center, the summer home of the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops.
Erich Kunzel is a regular guest conductor with orchestras around the world. He made his debut at the Tokyo International Festival in September 2004 conducting two concerts with The Super World Orchestra and will return to conduct a tour with the SWO in 2006. In 2004 he also made his debut with the San Francisco Opera conducting 12 performances of The Merry Widow. This production was telecast on BBC Worldwide and PBS as part of the Great Performances series. In 2005 Kunzel made his Viennese debut as part of the 100th anniversary season of the Vienna Volksopera, conducting the Viennese premiere of The Sound of Music. He returns to Cincinnati Opera in 2006 to conduct The Tales of Hoffman.
Mr. Kunzel’s future engagements also include concerts with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival. In addition, he returns to Taiwan to conduct the Kaohsiung Symphony and will tour with the Shanghai Philharmonic in China.
Dubbed the "Prince of Pops" by the Chicago Tribune, Maestro Kunzel has appeared in more than 100 performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, where he holds the record for attendance—22,000. Since 1991 Maestro Kunzel has led the National Symphony on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol in PBS-TV’s nationally televised Memorial Day and Fourth of July concerts. In 1996, the Fourth of July concert drew a record crowd of nearly a million people to the Capitol, as well as the largest viewing audience for a musical event in PBS history.
Educated at Dartmouth, Harvard and Brown Universities, Mr. Kunzel studied with and was personal assistant to the great French conductor Pierre Monteux. He made his professional debut in 1957 conducting the Santa Fe Opera Company. By 1970, when Arthur Fiedler invited him to conduct the Boston Pops for the first time, Mr. Kunzel’s commitment to "pops" was assured. Since then he has led the Boston Pops in more than 100 performances in Boston’s Symphony Hall and on tour in the US and England.
Mr. Kunzel is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the 1987 Post-Corbett Award from the Cincinnati Post and the 1989 Sony Tiffany Walkman Award for "visionary recording activities." He was named by the Ohio Arts Council as a special recipient of the 1991 Governor’s
Awards for the Arts in Ohio. He received the 1994 Presidential Medal for Outstanding Leadership and Achievement from Dartmouth College, his alma mater, and the 1995 Salvation Army "Others"
award in recognition of his contributions to the city of Cincinnati. In 1995 the Cincinnati MacDowell
Society honored Mr. Kunzel’s contributions to the arts community by awarding him the MacDowell Medal. In 1996 the Phi Delta Theta International Fraternity presented him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements in the performing arts.
Mr. Kunzel has served on the faculties of Brown University and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. He holds honorary degrees from Northern Kentucky University, The College of Mount St. Joseph and the University of Cincinnati. In 2000, the Ohioana Library presented Mr. Kunzel with the coveted Ohioana Pegasus Award in recognition of his extraordinary musical accomplishments and devotion to the musical arts in America.
Mr. Kunzel is Chairman of the Greater Cincinnati Arts and Education Center, an organization with which he plans to fulfill his personal dream of building a new School for the Creative and Performing Arts adjacent to Music Hall.
He and his wife, Brunhilde, live on Swan’s Island, Maine and in Naples, Florida. They frequently take to the water in their 44-foot Hinckley jet cruiser, "Pops."
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