BERNHARD GUELLER

Bernhard Gueller, Music Director of Canada’s Symphony Nova Scotia, is a frequent guest conductor of symphony orchestras all over the world. Just in the recent years he has conducted in Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Spain, and the United States of America as well as in Brazil and Uruguay, with return engagements in several countries in the coming seasons. He just renewed his contract for the second time with Symphony Nova Scotia, taking him to 2013.

Gueller’s conducting career started in 1979 after winning the conductors’ competition run by the United German Broadcasting Companies. He then had a longstanding and intense cooperation with Sergiu Celibidache which became a very decisive influence on his further work as a conductor. Two years later, Gueller was appointed by an indisposed Celibidache to take the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra on a national tour of Germany, receiving acclaim as one of Germany’s most talented conductors. Celibidache also invited him to conduct the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra on several occasions.

Bernhard Gueller began his musical career as a cellist in Stuttgart, having graduated from the city’s Hochschule für Musik, where he attended master classes with Antonio Janigro, courses with Paul Tortelier and chamber music classes with the Melos Quartet. Furthermore, he has assisted conductors such as Sir Georg Solti and Georges Prétre.

His CD of Wagner and Mahler songs with the South African mezzo soprano Hanneli Rupert and the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra was released on the RCA Red Seal Label in 2003, and a CD of works by Canadian composer Christos Hatzis with Symphony Nova Scotia released in 2006 by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) received high acclaim and an East Coast Music Award nomination. In May 2009 he finished his duties as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra.

„He is my best pupil.”
SERGIU CELIBIDACHE

„I have observed Mr. Gueller at rehearsal in Cape Town, South Africa, as well as in rehearsal and concert in Sapporo, Japan. Both times I was deeply impressed by his extraordinary musicianship, his marvellous ability to communicate with the musicians, and, in the Sapporo concert, his charismatic impact on the audience. In Sapporo, members of the orchestra and management were exuberantly enthusiastic about him, and told me that the orchestra had never played better. It is not often that I feel totally confident about the abilities of a conductor.“
ERNEST FLEISCHMANN

„The conductor, Bernhard Gueller, who had taken over from the indisposed Kurt Sanderling, changed the programme by putting in Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 instead of the planned third symphony. He led the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, playing as if unleashed, in a performance of Bruckner which in terms of urgency and artistic merit could hardly have been be surpassed. It is a long time since we have heard this orchestra play with such strength and unity. Gueller succeeded in maintaining continuous tension throughout the enormous arches of Bruckner’s music, something which few conductors succeed in doing. Each thematic climax and new surge of tension was made to seem, and was heard as, part of a larger development... A few seconds’ silence in the Beethoven Hall marked the end of this performance. Unexpectedly, we had been shown what music can mean. We can only hope that we will have the chance to experience Bernhard Gueller at the helm of this orchestra again...“
STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG

„Gueller was an utterly enthralling figure on the podium, unleashing prodigious power and dramatic urgency in Mussorgsky’s Night on Bare Mountain, James Ledger’s new fanfare, In this Day and Age, and most of all in Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. Tempos were fast, contrasts rugged, but more than anything else there was a sense of the orchestra being pushed to a higher purpose. The ASO responded in big measure, but seemed unaccustomed to direction as commanding as this. The answer is simple: invite him back…”
THE AUSTRALIAN

„Having already conducted Casablanca’s music so effectively, Gueller gave of his best in the second half with ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ – that explosive mixture of Mussorgsky’s inspiration and Ravel’s masterly orchestration. This completely orthodox interpretation possessed all the required strength and spectacle. It was a noteworthy performance on the part of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, both in terms of brilliant sound from the full orchestra and in terms of individual playing. At the end, after the monumental Great Gate of Kiev, the audience rose to its feet in a standing ovation…”
EL PAIS BARCELONA

„The famous New York Times critic Harold Schonberg told me in a 1978 interview: ‘There are no bad orchestras, only bad conductors.’ In this instance, the orchestra’s performance was superlative, just as its superlative conductor Bernhard Gueller directed it…”
DIE BURGER CAPE TOWN

„Among the performance’s assets were a precise, robust string sound, idiomatic wind playing and, perhaps, more than anything, the vigour and intelligence of Gueller’s interpretation…”
THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

„…the orchestra itself was the star of the show. It demonstrated Friday night its right to be called one of the world’s finest Mozart orchestras. And Friday night’s concert was one of its best performances… Gueller, as ringmaster, had no need of a whip. A gesture, a look, a momentary infusion of energy for a new entry was all he needed to articulate his sure and detailed musical intentions…”
HALIFAX CHRONICLE HERALD

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