Conductor John Neschling has been active as both an orchestral and an opera conductor, both in his native Brazil and in Europe. During more than ten years with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo (São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra), he built the group into an orchestra of international stature. Neschling was born in Rio de Janeiro on May 13, 1947. His parents were Austrian Jews who had fled fascism in Europe; his grandmother Malvine Bodzansky was a cousin of Arnold Schoenberg. Neschling took up the piano as a child but then settled on conducting as a career and returned to Austria for studies with Hans Swarowsky in Vienna. In the U.S., he had further training from Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Festival. Conducting competition prizes (Florence in 1969, the London Symphony in 1972, and La Scala in 1976) helped launch his career in both Brazil and Europe. In 1973, he became the director of the municipal theaters in both São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Neschling held conducting positions at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, the Teatro de São Galo in Switzerland, and the Opera de Bordeaux in France, among other houses, and for a time, he was the resident conductor at the Vienna State Opera. In 1996, he led a performance at the Washington Opera of the 19th century opera Il Guarany by Antônio Carlos Gomes. The following year, Neschling became the conductor of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, and over a dozen years with the group, he raised its musical level, took the group on tour to the U.S. and Austria, attracted numerous new subscribers, and moved the orchestra into a renovated train station; the new Sala São Paulo was widely praised for its acoustics. Neschling left the orchestra in 2008 after disagreements with the state government. He continued to make guest conducting appearances with European orchestras and opera companies. In 2013, Neschling was named the artistic director of São Paulo's municipal theater; once again, he drew new audiences but came into conflict with government officials. Neschling has continued to make frequent appearances with such European groups as the Royal Liège Philharmonic and the Leningrad Philharmonic. Neschling is also a composer who has written scores for the films Pixote and Kiss of the Spider Woman, among others, and for several Brazilian television series. While with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Neschling inaugurated a major recording program with the BIS label; these recordings brought the orchestra international acclaim. Neschling has continued to record for BIS since leaving São Paulo and, to date, has made more than 25 albums for BIS. In 2014, with the Royal Liège Philharmonic, he inaugurated a series of recordings of orchestral music by Ottorino Respighi: the fifth album in that series, featuring Respighi's transcriptions of music by Bach and Rachmaninov, appeared in 2021.

John Neschling

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