Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne & Heinz Holliger
Biography Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne & Heinz Holliger
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (OCL)
was founded in 1942 by Victor Desarzens and is today one of the most sought-after chamber orchestras in Europe. After six years under the artistic direction of the American conductor Joshua Weilerstein, the OCL is now led by the famous violinist Renaud Capuçon. The OCL performs in the most prestigious concert halls and festivals (Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Enescu Festival Bucharest, Rostropovich Festival Moscow, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, BBC Proms, Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonie).
Over the years, the OCL has performed with many leading soloists (including Clara Haskil, Alfred Cortot, Walter Gieseking, Edwin Fischer, Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu, Marta Argerich, Nikolai Lugansky, Daniel Barenboim, Arthur Grumiaux, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Paul Tortelier, Truls Mørk, Jean-Pierre Rampal and Emmanuel Pahud). In addition, the OCL has always managed to attract the most interesting conductors (Paul Hindemith, Günter Wand, Christoph Eschenbach, Ton Koopman, Jeffrey Tate, Bertrand de Billy, Simone Young and Daniel Harding). The OCL has an extensive discography. Recent recordings include two albums conducted by Joshua Weilerstein. The first is dedicated to Igor Stravinsky (2016), the second includes two symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich (early 2021). In September 2021, Warner Classics released the first CD conducted by Renaud Capuçon with works by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. An orchestra of OCL's stature naturally goes hand in hand with soloists and renowned guest conductors, but it means above all a strong identity shaped over the years by a small number of artistic directors: Founder Victor Desarzens (1942-1973) was followed by Armin Jordan (1973-1985), Lawrence Foster (1985-1990), Jesús López Cobos (1990-2000) and Christian Zacharias (2000-2013). From 2015-2020, Joshua Weilerstein continued the work of his predecessors, anchoring OCL in the 21st century with a series of bold programmes and effective use of new communication tools. Renaud Capuçon took over as artistic director of the orchestra in autumn 2021. The French violinist and conductor's vast musical experience, dynamic personality and artistic stature promise an exciting new chapter in the OCL's history!
Heinz Holliger
was born in 1939 in Langenthal in the Canton of Bern. He studied oboe (with Émile Cassagnaud and Pierre Pierlot), piano (with Sava Savoff and Yvonne Lefébure), and composition (with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez) in Bern, Paris, and Basel. His international career as an oboist, which has taken him to the major music centers all over the world, began in 1959, when he won first prize at the International Music Competition in Geneva; he additionally won the ARD Music Competition in Munich in 1961 – the same year in which he made his debut at the Internationale Musikfestwochen Luzern, now known as LUCERNE FESTIVAL. Holliger has expanded the technical capacities of his instrument and remains a strong supporter of contemporary music as well as of lesser-known works. Many composers, including Henze, Ligeti, and Lutosławski, have dedicated new scores to him. In 1977 Holliger took up his career as a conductor, which soon brought him to the most renowned orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. He has also enjoyed a longterm partnership with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. A composer in his own right, Heinz Holliger was featured in 1998 as composer-in-residence at the IMF Luzern. His opera Schneewittchen premiered in Zurich in 2002, where his latest stage work, Lunea, which is based on scenes from Nikolaus Lenau, was produced in the spring of 2018. Holliger has received numerous awards, including the Sonning Music Prize (1987), the Frankfurt Music Prize (1988), the Siemens Music Prize (1991), the Premio Abbiati of the Biennale di Venezia (1995), the Zurich Festival Prize (2007), and, most recently, the Robert Schumann Prize (2017). He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2016.
