Alexander Weimann
Alexander Weimann is one of the most sought-after ensemble directors, soloists, and chamber music partners of his generation. He has traveled the world as a member of the ensemble Tragicomedia; as a frequent guest of ensembles such as Les Boréades, Cantus Cölln, Freiburger Barockorchester, Tafelmusik, and the Gesualdo Consort; and as musical director of Les Voix Baroques and Le Nouvel Opéra. During the 2008 season he led the Portland Baroque Orchestra in Handel’s Messiah, conducted the Pacific Baroque Orchestra on a tour of Canada and the USA, and performed Bach’s Harpsichord Concertos as soloist with Les Violons du Roy. Both the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra regularly invite him to play as soloist. After working as an assistant conductor at the Amsterdam, Basel, and Hamburg opera houses, he began directing on his own. A cross section of his opera’s include: Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona with the Handel’s Orlando Furioso in Munich; Telemann’s Passion oratorio Seliges Erwägen at the Europäischen Wochen (European weeks) festival at Passau; Caldara’s Clodoveo (2005) and the multipart opera event Mozart à Milano (2006), both of which were Canadian-German co-productions mounted at festivals in Montreal and Vancouver, and at the Sanssouci Palace Theatre in Berlin. For the Vancouver Early Music Festival, he’s directed Handel’s Resurrection (2007), and Rameau’s Pygmalion (2008). Weimann can be heard on some 100 CDs and, frequently, on the radio in many countries. He made his North American recording debut with the ensemble Tragicomedia on the CD Capritio (Harmonia Mundi USA), and won worldwide acclaim from both the public and critics for his 2001 release of Handel’s Gloria (on the Canadian label Atma Classique) and has won many awards since then. Weimann was born in 1965 in Munich, where he studied the organ, church music, musicology (his M.A. thesis was on Bach’s recitatives), theatre, medieval Latin, and jazz piano. To ground himself further in the roots of western music, he became intensively involved with Gregorian chant. In 1997, his group Le Nuove Musiche won first prize at the Premio Bonporti music competition in Rovereto. Weimann has taught music theory, improvisation, and jazz at the Munich Musikhochschule. Since 1998, he has been giving master classes in harpsichord and historical performance practice at institutions such as Lunds University in Malmö and the Bremen Musikhochschule, and also at North American universities such as Berkeley (University of California), Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, McGill in Montreal, and Mount Allison in New Brunswick. For several years, he has been teaching early music performance practice to voice and instrumental students at the Université de Montréal, as well as conducting the Baroque opera that is produced there once every two years. Recently, Alexander Weimann has returned to jazz; he has played piano on several CDs, and in a video clip for CBC Showcase. After some years in Berlin, he now spends as much time as possible with his family — which so far includes two children as well as several pets — in his adopted home, Montreal, and is active in both his kitchen and his garden.
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