Chamber Orchestra Mannheim & Paul Meyer
Biography Chamber Orchestra Mannheim & Paul Meyer
Paul Meyer
is one of the leading clarinettists worldwide performing regularly with renowned orchestras in Europe and the United States, in the Far East and Australia; but since 1988 he is also a conductor besides his career as a soloist. He founded the Orchestre de Chambre d'Alsace, was assistant to John Crewe with the Northern Junior Philharmonic in England and in 2007 was appointed "Associate Chief Conductor" of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra by Myung Whun Chung, shaping its international profile with French compositions and works by Roussel, Dukas and Saint-Saëns in particular. Paul Meyer is co-founder of the Korean Orchestra Academy for Young Talents. From 2009 until 2012 he was chief conductor of the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and has since worked with a number of renowned orchestras such as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, l'Orchestre National de Bordeaux, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Flemish Philharmonik, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Danish Symphony Orchestra or the China Philharmonic.
More than 50 CD recordings with leading labels, among others DGG, Sony, RCA, EMI and Virgin, have documented his musical activities; for these he won numerous prizes, e.g. Fono-Forum, Diapason d'Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique, Gramophone and Grammy Awards. Particularly worth mentioning are his recordings as conductor of the Camerata Padova (piano concertos by Mozart and Haydn with JM Luisada), the Royal Philharmonique de Liège (works by Darius Milhaud), the Brussels Philharmonic (compositions by Corigliano & Carter), the Staatskapelle Weimar (cello concertos by Elgar & Walton), also the horn concertos of diverse epochs with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra as well as the highly successful CD "Bolero de Meyer" with the Tokyo Kosei Orchestra. The series of Play-and-Conduct recordings with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne has also won prizes.
Here we can only mention some examples only of the chamber orchestras conducted by Paul Meyer: the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Stockholm Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonia, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester or the Münchener Kammerorchester. In 2012, Paul Meyer was awarded France's highest cultural distinction for his musical merits – the "Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres".
Succeeding Johannes Schlaefli, Paul Meyer was elected unanimously to become the new chief conductor in the autumn of 2018, and since the season of 2019/20 the artistic development of this reputed orchestra has been in his hands.
Chamber Orchestra Mannheim
Due to Carl Theodor's modern and enlightened mind during the years of his reign Mannheim and the Palatinate developed into one of the most innovative and progressive regions in Germany and Europe in the spheres of sciences and arts. It was in the realm of concert music above all that he succeeded in setting new standards by attracting the best composers and musicians of his time to the court of Mannheim – among them Johann Stamitz and his sons Anton and Carl, Franz Xaver Richter, Ignaz Holzbauer or Christian Cannabich – musicians who by their musical power were to point the way to a new orchestral culture. Indeed, classical instrumental music as we know it today would not be conceivable without the efforts of the Court Orchestra and the achievements of the Mannheim School. When Carl Theodor moved to Munich in 1778, the brilliant era of musical history ended and was slowly forgotten in the course of time.
It was only when the Chamber Orchestra Mannheim was formed that the Mannheim School of Music returned to the rivers Rhine and Neckar, bringing it back to the attention of a broad public. By decades of untiring efforts – e.g. numerous concerts, radio broadcasts and recordings or work editions – many important compositions of the Mannheim composers have found their way back into concert programmes worldwide. To many friends of music in the whole world the Mannheim School is linked closely with the KKO – even more so: this orchestra is considered the representative of the Mannheim School.
To this day the Chamber Orchestra Mannheim has made an indispensable contribution to the outstandingly rich heritage of musical history in the region keeping it alive far outside its regional borders. Many concerts in renowned venues such as Gasteig Munich, the Glocke in Bremen or the Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche) in Dresden as well as regular invitations to national and international festivals testify to the outstanding musical quality of this orchestra, its enthusiasm and the wide scope of its repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary compositions, thus guaranteeing first-class performances of the preclassical as well as classical periods.
