Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach


Volker Schmidt-Gertenbach is a German musician and conductor.
From 1974 to 1989, he was music director and general music director of the Göttinger Symphonie Orchester.

Career

Schmidt-Gertenbach was born the son of a cantor in Witzenhausen. He received his first violin and piano lessons at the age of 6. After graduating from high school, he began to study music and mathematics. He gained his first orchestral experience with a student orchestra he founded in Göttingen. Intensive studies with Rudolf Kempe and Wolfgang Sawallisch followed. At the end of the 1960s he led the orchestra of the StMV Blaue Sänger Göttingen.
In 1965, the Staatstheater Kassel engaged him as Repetitor.
Schmidt-Gertenbach had a decisive influence on the Göttinger Symphonie Orchester for 21 years. First from 1968 to 1974 as deputy music director, then from 1974 to 1989 as chief conductor and generalmusicdirector.
He has regularly performed with artists such as Wilhelm Kempff, Claudio Arrau, Alfred Brendel, Martha Argerich, Géza Anda, Mstislav Rostropovich, Heinrich Schiff and Frank Peter Zimmermann.
From 1981 to 1984, Schmidt-Gertenbach was also permanent conductor of the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stavanger.
He completed extensive concert tours through the Federal Republic, Italy, the USA, Spain and Japan with the world-renowned orchestras Sinfonia Varsovia, AUKSO chamber orchestra and Cappella Istropolitana.
He has performed in Vienna, Berlin, Rome, Chicago and Washington as well as at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Eastern Music Festival, the summer festival of Menton in France, the Rheingau Musik Festival, the Walkenrieder Kreuzgangkonzerte and at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
As a guest conductor, Schmidt-Gertenbach has been to France, Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Korea, Japan, South Africa, Mexico and the USA.
He has recorded over 100 works for various broadcasters, has appeared on television several times and has also made a name for himself in the music industry.
In 1998, 2001 and 2002 Schmidt-Gertenbach was conductor of the German-Polish Choral Academy "in terra pax"..
Schmidt-Gertenbach lives in Landkreis Göttingen in Südniedersachsen.

Recordings (selection)