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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Bach : Sei Solo - The Sonatas and Partitas
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on 15 Nov 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
W.A. Mozart : Violin Concertos 1-5 - Sinfonia Concertante, K.364 (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Classical - Released by Glossa on 1 Jan 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 19 KV 459 - Concerto for Flute & Harp KV 299 - Andante for Flute KV 315 - Horn Concerto No. 1 KV 412/514
ORF Radio Symphonieorchester Wien, Howard Griffiths, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by Alpha Classics on 10 Nov 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
#4 Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 23 & 38 "Prague" / Violin Concerto No. 3
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by SKO RECORDS on 8 Mar 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Sibelius: Violin Concerto, Finlandia, Karelia & The Swan of Tuonela
Thomas Zehetmair, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Kurt Masur
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on 28 Jan 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Niccolò Paganini - 24 Capricci per violino solo, op.1
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on 25 Aug 2009
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bartók / Casken / Beethoven
Ruth Killius, Thomas Zehetmair, Royal Northern Sinfonia
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on 17 Feb 2023
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel - Debussy
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestre de chambre de Paris
Classical - Released by naïve classique on 21 Oct 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
#1 Beethoven / Brahms / Schoenberg: String Quartet, Op. 95 / String Quintet, Op. 111 / "Verklärte Nacht"
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by SKO RECORDS on 8 Sep 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mendelssohn: Symphonies No. 1 & 5
Musikkollegium Winterthur, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm on 1 Aug 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Quintette à cordes No. 2 in G Major, Op. 111 (Live)
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestre national Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Johannes Brahms
Classical - Released by XXI Music on 9 Jun 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Perspectives
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestre national Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Classical - Released by XXI Music on 6 Oct 2023
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphony No. 6 • Hans Gál: Symphony No. 1
Thomas Zehetmair, Northern Sinfonia
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on 12 Apr 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Maderna: Complete Works for Orchestra, Vol. 5
Arturo Tamayo, Thomas Zehetmair, Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt, Markus Bellheim
Classical - Released by NEOS Music on 15 Jul 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 • Hans Gál: Symphony No. 2
Thomas Zehetmair, Northern Sinfonia
Classical - Released by AVIE Records on 10 May 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
#3 Bartók / Adams: Divertimento / Shaker Loops
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by SKO RECORDS on 10 Nov 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
#2 Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 "Der Tod und das Mädchen"
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Thomas Zehetmair
Classical - Released by SKO RECORDS on 6 Oct 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies; Violin Concerto; Prometheus
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestra Of The 18th Century, Frans Brüggen
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Fauré & Saint-Saëns
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Deborah Nemtanu
Classical - Released by Mirare on 28 Jan 2013
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 (Live in Utrecht, 9/30/2003)
Thomas Zehetmair, Orchestra Of The 18th Century, Frans Brüggen
Classical - Released by Glossa on 2 Jul 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ysaÿe: Sonates Pour Violon Solo
Classical - Released by ECM New Series on 13 Sep 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo