Music Director
For more information and photos, visit www.rpo.org/remmereit.
Arild Remmereit joined the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2011 as its eleventh Music Director. Remmereit adds to the Orchestra’s storied history, which includes such illustrious conductors as Eugene Goosens, Erich Leinsdorf, and David Zinman.
The Norwegian-born Remmereit made five dramatic debuts, over the course of five months in 2005, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony, Milan’s Filarmonica della Scala, the Munich Philharmonic and the Vienna Symphony, quickly establishing himself as a major talent on the international scene.
The New York Times wrote of his Pittsburgh debut:
“…he showed utter self-assurance, using clear and wide-ranging gestures, particularly in a breathtakingly dynamic reading of the Schumann [Symphony No. 4]… The only thing listeners seemed to want to talk about afterward was Mr. Remmereit. ‘Sensational’ was the word heard most frequently.”
The prestigious Wiener Zeitung hailed his performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 with the Vienna Symphony as “the sensation of the evening…The orchestra played with unequaled precision.”
Remmereit was immediately re-engaged in Pittsburgh, Vienna, Milan, and Baltimore, and since then has conducted a number of other prominent orchestras around the world, including the Detroit Symphony, England’s Hallé Orchestra, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale in Florence, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), the Dallas Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Bamberg Symphoniker, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, and the Seoul Philharmonic, among many others. In 2005, he made an acclaimed debut at the Teatro alla Scala conducting Tchaikovsky’s opera Cherevicki.
Remmereit began piano lessons at the age of six, studied trumpet, and performed as a boy soprano. In 1986 he graduated from the Norwegian Conservatory of Music, earning master’s degrees in voice, piano (jazz and classical), and composition. It was at a conducting seminar in 1985 at the Aspen Music Festival that he was inspired to change his focus. From 1987 to 1992, he studied conducting in Vienna under the direction of Prof. Karl Österreicher at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, where he also participated in a master class with Zubin Mehta. Remmereit studied with Leonard Bernstein at the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and assisted him in several recordings in Vienna between 1987 and 1990.
Remmereit and his wife, Honami, welcomed their first child, Leonardo, in February 2011.
Photo by Walter Colley Images.
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