8 - Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin

A new and important phase of Kent Nagano’s career opened when he became Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2000. He became a prominent figure in a new wave of artistic thinking in Germany, opening minds to inventive, confrontational programming. With the orchestra he explored the symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Bruckner and Mahler alongside major contemporary works by Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann and Bernd Alois Zimmermann.
 
Kent took the orchestra to the Salzburg Festival for performances of Schrecker’s Die Gezeichneten and Zemlinsky’s Der Koenig Kandaules, to Los Angeles Opera for Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, to Japan for Takemitsu’s My Way of Life and to Baden Baden for Wagner’s Parsifal and Lohengrin.
 
With the orchestra Kent has recorded works by Bruckner, John Adams, Bernstein, Mahler, Saariaho and Bruckner amongst others and together they released Classical Masterpieces – a 6-DVD set of composer portraits on Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner and Richard Strauss.
 
In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, he was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra, only the second recipient of this honour in their 60-year history.
 
Kent maintains a strong relationship with the orchestra and will return in the winter/spring of 2011 with a series of concerts featuring the music of Bruckner, Widmann, Rihm and Zimmermann.