From the time of his 1971 First Prize in the Herbert von Karajan Conducing Competition in Berlin and Gold Medal in the Cantelli Competition at “La Scala” in Milan, Gabriel Chmura enjoys an international career throughout Europe, Japan, and the Americas.
Meastro Chmura has served as Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, with whom he made extensive tours of North America culminating with a performance at Carnegie Hall of which The New York Times reported: “Mr. Chmura and his players made an immediately favorable impression with the opening work, Haydn's Symphony No. 85 in B flat. The orchestra's strings and winds produced a silky, refined sound in the opening Adagio and in the lovely Romance. But Mr. Chmura recognized that Haydn symphonies do not thrive on refinement alone. By sharpening the accents of the Minuet, he elicited a stylishly earthy sound, and thereby set the scene perfectly for the brisk closing Presto.”
While he also served as Music Director of the Bochum Symphony Orchestra, the Polish National Radio Orchestra in Katowice, and as von Karajan before him, Meastro Chmura began his operatic conducting career in 1973 at the helm of the Aachen Opera House.
Following his Munich debut at the Bayerische Staatoper in 1974 with Otello, Maestro Chmura was immediately re-engaged for Carmen, conducted a highly successful Samson et Dalila in Barcelona, a critically acclaimed Werther at the Paris Opera, Le Coq d’Or at the Théâtre du Châtèlet in Paris, Der fliegende Holländer in Nancy, Roméo et Juliette, Werther, and Manon in Strasbourg. While with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, he completed the Da Ponte Cycle of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte.
Maestro Chmura has been a guest of the world’s great orchestras, among them the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Orchestre National de France, the London Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in Japan, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Cologne Radio Orchestra.
The 2008-2009 season brought Maestro Chmura to the Krakow Philharmonic, where he was Principal Guest Conductor, to L’Orchestre National de Lyon, the Orchestra Filharmonica di Roma, the Petrobas Sinfonica in Rio de Janeiro, the Nürnberger Philharmoniker, and to the festivals of Martha Agerich in Lugano and Krzysztof Penderecki in Warsaw. He made his return to opera this season in the new Robert Wilson production of Faust at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, where he also leads the Harry Kupfer production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. He will lead a new David Pountney Production of Weinberg's The Portrait for L'Opera Nationale de Lorraine in 2011.
As a recording artists, Maestro Chmura was awarded a “Grand Prix du Disque Mondial de Montreux” for Schubert’s Lazarus with Herman Prey, Edith Mathis and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra on Orfeo. American Record Guide selected his recording of Haydn’s Symphonies 6, 7 and 8 with the National Arts Centre Orchestra for the CBC “Best Choice,” and was additionally nominated for the Canadian JUNO Award. For Deutsche Grammophon Maestro Chmura has recorded Mendelssohn Overtures with the London Symphony Orchestra, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Sibelius’ Valse Triste with the Polish National Radio Orchestra on Universal. Chandos contracted Maestro Chmura to record the music of Polish/Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg with the National Polish Radio Orchestra. The critics greeted each of the first 3 releases with rave reviews. Gramophone reviewed the release of the 14th and 16th Symphonies as “an issue of considerable accomplishment and importance.” BBC Music Magazine concurred: “Gabriel Chmura and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra revel in the Rhapsody’s many opportunities for virtuosity, and they deliver vibrant and committed accounts of the Symphony and Sinfonietta.”
Born in Poland, Gabriel Chmura was raised in Israel, where he studied piano and composition at the Music Academy of Tel Aviv. He studied conducting with Pierre Dervaux in Paris, Hans Swarowsky in Vienna and with Franco Ferrara in Siena, Italy.
July 2010 - Please destroy any previously released version