Why a Gstaad Festival Orchestra?

“I am highly enthusiastic and motivated to define new directions with and for the Menuhin Festival, to make the Festival even more vibrant, unique and exciting. Original productions provide a means to shape – purposefully and directly – the profile and appeal of the Festival, and the instrument of an own orchestra provides a means for projecting the image of the Gstaad Festival throughout the music world. The Gstaad Festival Orchestra unites my two areas of activity in an ideal manner, allowing me
to transform my passion for music into tangible projects: the management of an internationally acclaimed orchestra and the design and direction of an international classic festival. A wish has come true in being able to unite these two worlds in the project of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra, and I will do my utmost to create something of artistic significance from which both the Festival as well as the orchestra and musicians will profit. The exclusive projects realized with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra also will represent a great enrichment for the public, the Festival and its whole surroundings. After successful years of development marked by increasing support on the part of audiences, sponsors and artists as well as by heightened interest on the part of the international media and professional associations, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad has reached a stage at which something new can be created and expanded. I think that a music festival should be in constant motion, always in the flow of things.

It is a great honor and delight for me to have Maxim Vengerov as the Principal conductor of the GFO and to have him direct the ensemble on its first international tour. His intuitive musicality and his personality are sure to win over musicians and audiences alike, and I am convinced that the symphonic programmes with emphasis on the Russian Romantic are sure to be highlights in the Festival programme.

His latest successes with leading international orchestras confirm that Maxim Vengerov is the right musician for this challenge, not to mention the enthusiastic feedback of numerous orchestral musicians from ensembles that he has conducted. The New York Times recently wrote with regard to one of his concerts: “The musicians respond magnetically to him.”

We also are already working on a second project with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra for August 2011, for which we were able to obtain the superb mediator and communicator Kristjan Järvi. He is able to transcend the boundaries between diverse musical styles with skill and charm, and thus we are guaranteed to realize exciting projects that will be marked by rhythm, groove as well as pure joy and desire for making music. The New York Times described his presence on the stage as “a kinetic force on the podium, like Leonard Bernstein reborn” – no further commentary is necessary with regard to his career as a conductor.

Christoph Müller, artistic director and intendant of the Menuhin Festival and Director of the kammerorchesterbasel