Günther Herbig To Lead Seattle Orchestra

Critics have called cellist Xavier Phillips "a performer with a powerful, singing tone and technique to burn" (The Houston Post). He has appeared as both a soloist and chamber musician in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Lisbon, London, Moscow and Vienna; with the New York Philharmonic; Orchestre de Paris; Orchestre National of France; Orchestre Philharmonieque de Radio France; Filarmonica della Scala; and the Bamberg, Berlin, Chicago, Houston, National and Seattle symphonies, among others. He was awarded first place at the Helsinki competition; Second Prize at the Musical Youths of Belgrade competition; and Special Prizes at the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow and the 1990 Rostropovich competition in Paris. Born in Paris, Phillips began cello studies at age 6 with Jacqueline Heuclin and continued under Paul Tortelier and Mstislav Rostropovich. In 2003, he performed a series of concerts in New York and Washington, D.C., in honor of Rostropovich, under the late Maestro's own direction.

"Günther Herbig can always be counted on to deliver an interpretation fashioned in exquisite taste" (Columbus Dispatch). Known for his interpretations of 19th-century Germanic repertoire, Herbig was invited to conduct the 2001 Edinburgh International Festival's "Homage to Beethoven" concert, which aired on the BBC radio and television. He has appeared with orchestras all over the world, including the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonics; Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle symphonies; the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic, among others. Key appointments include as Music Director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and Berlin Symphony Orchestra; Chief Conductor of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra; and Principal Guest Conductor of the Dallas Symphony and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

Born in East Germany, Herbig began his musical training with Hermann Abendroth at the Franz Liszt Academy in Weimar, and later undertook intensive study with Herbert von Karajan. He currently resides in Michigan, and is an American citizen.

Although Mozart is fixed in the public mind as music's iconic child-prodigy composer, Felix Mendelssohn was even more precocious. His String Symphony in B minor, one of many such works Mendelssohn wrote when he was 12 and 13 years old, may be the most accomplished composition ever penned by a young musician.

By contrast, Antonín Dvorák's talent ripened slowly. The Czech composer did not achieve real maturity until age 40, and he did his best work after turning 50. One of his greatest compositions is his Cello Concerto, which employs melodic features of Czech folk songs within the context of a skillfully written, classically shaped, large-scale concert work.

Jean Sibelius also found his way as a composer in his adulthood. The Finnish musician was well into his 30s by the time he wrote his first symphony. But he had already composed a number of other orchestral works, and these gave Sibelius the experience to produce an unusually accomplished Symphony No. 1. Like Dvorák's Cello Concerto, this work brings Romantic expression to a classical compositional genre. -- www.seattlesymphony.org