My Bio – Maestro Diemecke

Enrique Arturo Diemecke

Enrique Diemecke is Artistic General Director of the famed Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. The first internationally acclaimed conductor to hold the position, he is in an unprecedented 12th season as Music Director of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, and his 28th season as Music Director of the award-winning Flint Symphony Orchestra in Michigan.

The leading Mexican conductor of his generation, Enrique Diemecke enjoys an international recording, operatic, and concert career. He brings an electrifying balance of passion, intellect and technique to his performances. Warmth, pulse, and spontaneity are all hallmarks of his conducting – conducting that has earned him an international reputation for performances that are riveting in their sweep and dynamism. In the words of The New York Times, Diemecke is a conductor of “fierceness and authority.” A noted interpreter of the works of Mahler, Maestro Diemecke has been awarded a Mahler Society medal for his performances of the composer’s complete symphonies.

Maestro Diemecke is a frequent guest of orchestras throughout the world, most notably the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, French National Orchestra, BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, L’Orchestre de Paris, Residentie Orkest in The Hague, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, the Russian National Orchestra, the Bogota Philharmonic, the Puerto Rico Symphony, Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Caracas, l’Orchestre National de Lorraine, the National Orchestra of Montpellier, the Valladolid Symphony, the ORCAM Madrid, L’Orchestre de Isle de France, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Houston, Minnesota, and Auckland.

Maestro Diemecke is an experienced conductor of opera, having served as Music Director of the Bellas Artes Opera of Mexico from 1984-1990, where he led more than 20 productions including Faust, La bohème, Salome, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos, Der fliegende Hollander, Rigoletto, Turandot, Madama Butterfly, and Roméo et Juliette. He has since returned as a guest conductor with new productions of Lohengrin, Boris Godunov, and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice.

Maestro Diemecke returned to opera as he opened the 2007-2008 season of the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires with a new production of Werther, followed by performances of Massenet’s Le Jongleur de Notre Dame with tenor Roberto Alagna in Montpellier, which was released by Deutsche Grammophon and awarded the prestigious Grand Prix de l’Academie du Disque Lyrique. He is a regular guest of the famed Teatro Zarzuela in Madrid, and was awarded the Jean Fontaine Orpheus d’Or Gold Medal for “best vocal music recording” by France’s Academy of Lyric Recordings for his recording of Donizetti’s The Exiles of Siberia with the L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Montpellier-Languedoc-Roussillon. Maestro Diemecke was previously honored with a Gold Medal

from the Academy of Lyric Recordings with the Bruno Walter Orpheus d’Or Prize for “Best Opera Conductor” for his live recording of Mascagni’s Parisina, from the Radio France Festival.

With 20 years at the helm of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Maestro Diemecke led the ensemble on a ten-city tour of the United States, culminating with a program of Latin American masterworks at New York’s Carnegie Hall. He and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México were nominated for “Best Classical Album” for the 3rd Annual Latin Grammy Awards, for their recording of Carlos Chávez’ Violin and Piano Concertos with violinist Pablo Diemecke and pianist Jorge Federico Osorio.

He is also frequently invited to festivals such as the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, the Hollywood Bowl Festival, Wolf Trap, Autumno Musicale a Como (Italy), Europalia (Brussels), World Fair Expo Sevilla (Spain), Festival International Radio France, and the World Orchestra Festival in Moscow where he led the Bogota Philharmonic.

Maestro Diemecke is an accomplished composer and orchestral arranger, and has conducted his Die-Sir-E, during the Mexican National Symphony Orchestra tour of the U.S. in 1999. The Die-Sir-E was commissioned by the Radio France Festival for the World Cup Final Concert in France in 1998. Maestro Diemecke was commissioned to write a tone poem for the Flint Symphony Orchestra, and his works Chacona a Chávez and Guitar Concerto have received many performances both in Europe and in the United States. During the 2001-2002 season, he gave the world premiere of his work Camino y vision, dedicated to President Vincente Fox, with the Tulsa Philharmonic.

Recordings of the music of Revueltas, Chávez, and Moncayo for Sony/Mexico with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México have been best-sellers in Mexico, earning Maestro Diemecke and orchestra the Golden Record Award. Other releases have included the music of Villa-Lobos and Silvestre Revueltas on the Dorian label with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. In these recordings, as well as in his concert performance, Maestro Diemecke has earned particular renown as a pioneering advocate of the music of Chávez and Revueltas, Mexico’s greatest composers, and his CD of Revueltas’ masterwork La noche de los Mayas has become a recording classic.

Maestro Diemecke’s recording with the Flint Symphony Orchestra of the 1896 version of Mahler’s First Symphony (which includes the subsequently deleted “Blumine” movement) was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Born in Guanajuato, Mexico, Enrique Diemecke comes from a large family of classical musicians. He began to play the violin at the age of six studying for many years with the legendary violinist Henryk Szeryng. At the age of nine he added french horn, piano, and percussion to his studies. Mr. Diemecke attended Catholic University in Washington, D.C. and continued his studies with Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School for Advanced Conductors on a scholarship granted by Madame Monteux.

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