Michael Gielen

Conductor Michael Gielen was a widely recognized specialist in the avant-garde music of Central Europe, with an impressive ability to digest and interpret even very complex scores. He was also a noted composer. Gielen was a staff conductor at the Vienna State Opera from 1954 to 1960, music director of the Royal Opera of Stockholm from 1960 to 1965, and then conductor of the Cologne Radio Symphony, the Belgian National Opera, and the Dutch National Opera. From 1977 to 1987, he was chief conductor of the Frankfurt Opera. In the years after his death, the SWR label completed the Michael Gielen Edition anthology series.