The orchestra

The Menuhin Festival founded the Gstaad Festival Orchestra (GFO) in 2010. It is a symphonic ensemble that represents the modern character of the Menuhin Festival in the 21st century with artistic programmes and performances on the highest level. Something new should emerge in the inspiring region of Saanenland and Gstaad, something of artistic value that will be of importance for the music world. Gstaad and the Festival thus will acquire an ambassador with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra that will present one of the most beautiful regions of Switzerland to all of Europe as a “creative music workshop”.

Under the direction of violinist and conductor Maxim Vengerov the Gstaad Festival Orchestra performed symphonic programmes with works by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov in the summer of 2010 and undertook its first tour, which led the ensemble to the Rheingau Music Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Bregenz Festival Hall, the Frauenkirche in Dresden, and the Philharmonie am Gasteig in Munich, among others. Kristjan Järvi led the GFO in the summer of 2011, presenting two American programmes with music by Copland, Adams, Gershwin and Corigliano. With soloists Renée Fleming (soprano), Martin Grubinger (percussion), Renaud Capuçon (violin), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Vadim Gluzman (violin) the GFO performed at the Festival La Chaise Dieu (F), in Saint-Denis near Paris and at the Herrenchiemsee Festival. The programmes were rehearsed in Gstaad and performed at the Menuhin Festival.

For the Festival years 2012 and 2013 projects with Kristjan Järvi and with David Zinman are scheduled, including with soloists Truls Mørk, Fazil Say and with the MDR Radio Chorus Leipzig. The Gstaad Festival Orchestra is made up of string players and selected wind players from the kammerorchesterbasel, some 15 students from the International Menuhin Music Academy (only strings) as well as select musicians from other leading ensembles (Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich Opera Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Berne Symphony Orchestra). Innovative as well as traditional symphonic works will be prepared during an intensive rehearsal period in Gstaad. The musicians from the kammerorchesterbasel who perform some 80 to 120 concerts yearly, for the most part chamber orchestral music or works featuring soloists, thus receive with the GFO the welcome opportunity to rehearse and perform large-scale symphonic music. The orchestra is made up of 85 musicians. The kammerorchesterbasel’s highly acclaimed (by audiences and critics alike) spirit of making music can be experienced and expressed in a different form in the large-scale ensemble of the GFO.

The inclusion of some 15 string students from the International Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA) and the Hochschule der Künste Bern (Musik) (HKB) represents an opportune link to the IMMA’s 30 years of teaching activities in Gstaad and Blonay, founded by Lord Menuhin and continued by maestro Alberto Lysy.