Franz Welser-Möst facts for kids
Franz Welser-Möst (born August 16, 1960) is a famous conductor from Austria. He is known for leading orchestras and opera performances around the world. Currently, he is the music director of the Cleveland Orchestra in the United States.
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About Franz Welser-Möst
Franz Welser-Möst was born as Franz Leopold Maria Möst in Linz, Austria. When he was young, he studied the violin and became very interested in conducting music. He had to stop playing the violin after a car accident caused nerve damage. This made him focus completely on becoming a conductor.
In 1985, he started using the stage name Welser-Möst. This name was suggested by his mentor, Baron Andreas von Bennigsen. It was a way to honor the city of Wels, where Franz grew up. He made his first big appearances at the Salzburg Festival in 1985. Soon after, he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1986 and the Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur in 1988.
Early Conducting Roles
From 1986 to 1991, Welser-Möst was the main conductor for the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. In 1990, he became the principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO). He stayed with the LPO until 1996.
After that, he became the music director for the Zürich Opera House from 1995 to 2000. He returned to the Zürich Opera as general music director in 2005, but he left in 2008 to take on a similar role at the Vienna State Opera.
Leading the Vienna State Opera
Franz Welser-Möst first conducted at the Vienna State Opera in 1987. In 2007, the Austrian government announced he would become the Generalmusikdirektor (General Music Director) of the Vienna State Opera starting in September 2010. He led many performances there before stepping down in September 2014. He is an honorary member of the Wiener Singverein, a famous choir. He has also conducted the Vienna New Year's Concert with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra three times: in 2011, 2013, and 2023.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Welser-Möst made his first conducting appearance in the United States with the St. Louis Symphony in 1989. He first guest-conducted the Cleveland Orchestra in 1993. In the 2002–03 season, he became the seventh music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. He is expected to continue in this role until the 2026–27 season.
Under his leadership, the Cleveland Orchestra has performed regularly at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria, since 2003. They also started an annual performance series in Miami, Florida, in 2007.
Opera Performances in Cleveland
Franz Welser-Möst has brought staged opera performances back to the Cleveland Orchestra since 2009. These include famous operas like:
- Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte
- Richard Strauss's Salome and Daphne
- Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen
- Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin and Bluebeard's Castle
- Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande
Recent News
In 2020, Welser-Möst published his autobiography called Als ich die Stille fand (From Silence: Finding Calm in a Dissonant World). In October 2023, he had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. He canceled his performances for the rest of that year to recover. In January 2024, the Cleveland Orchestra announced that he will finish his time as music director at the end of the 2026-2027 season.
Recordings and Awards
Franz Welser-Möst has made many recordings throughout his career. While with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, he had a special recording deal with EMI. His 1996 recording of Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4 won a Gramophone Award for Best Orchestral Recording.
Some of his recordings, like Anton Bruckner's Mass No. 3 and Te Deum, and works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, were nominated for Grammy Awards. Many of his opera productions from the Zürich Opera have also been released on DVD.
In 2007, he released his first recording with the Cleveland Orchestra on the Deutsche Grammophon label. This was Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. He has also released DVDs of Anton Bruckner's symphonies with the Cleveland Orchestra. In 2020, he and the Cleveland Orchestra released a three-disc recording called The Cleveland Orchestra: A New Century, which was the first recording on the orchestra's own label.
See also
In Spanish: Franz Welser-Möst para niños
