In his second season as Music Director of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic of the famed Teatro Colon, Enrique Arturo Diemecke enters his seventh season as Music Director of the Long Beach Symphony in California and his eighteenth season as Music Director of the Flint Symphony Orchestra. Having completed his tenure of 20 years at the helm of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Maestro Diemecke returns to opera as he opens the 2007-2008 leading a new production of Werther at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, which followed performances of Le Jongleur de Notre Dame with tenor Roberto Alagna, which has been recorded by Deutsche Grammophon. Guest appearances in the 2006-2007 season included performances with the Pacific Symphony, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague, The Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Caracas, l’Orchestre National de Lorraine, and the Teatro Zarzuela in Madrid. A regular guest of the National Orchestra of Montpellier, he leads several weeks of subscription concerts with that ensemble.

Maestro Diemecke brings an electrifying balance of passion, intellect and technique to his performances. Warmth, pulse, and spontaneity are all hallmarks of his 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.

The 2005-2006 season brought Maestro Diemecke to the podiums of the French National Orchestra, on tour with the BBC Symphony, to the Columbus Symphony, the Valladolid Symphony, the ORCAM Madrid, L'Orchestre de Isle de France, and to the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. During the 2004-2005 season Maestro Diemecke presided over the 75th anniversary celebrations and programs of the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, and was heard as guest conductor of the, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, L'Orchestre de Paris, the Columbus Symphony, and Opera Pacific's production of I Pagliacci and Carmina Burana. During 2002-03 Maestro Diemecke took his Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico on a tour of the United States, performing a program of Latin American masterworks in concerts at New York's Carnegie Hall and in Chicago, Costa Mesa (CA), Las Vegas, Tucson, Lincoln (NE), Lawrence (KS), East Lansing (MI), Kutztown (PA), Upper Montclair (NJ), and Lewisburg (PA). Bernard Holland of The New York Times praised Diemecke's conducting of his orchestra at Carnegie Hall in the following terms: The National Symphony Orchrestra of Mexico may not be the tidiest of orchestras. On the other hand, The Night of the Mayas (Revueltas) is a very difficult piece, and it was managed here with fierceness and authority by the conducting of Enrique Arturo Diemecke. Similarly, Wynne Delacoma of the Chicago Sun-Times praised Diemecke and his orchestra: Diemecke kept an appropriately tight rein on tempos and rhythms throughout the evening. The orchestra's sound has attractive depth and warmth, but thanks to its transparent texture, each work's network of intricate rhythms was clearly audible. Maestro Diemecke and the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico were nominated for Best Classical Album for the 3rd Annual Latin Grammy Awards for 2002, for their CD disc of Carlos Chavez's Violin and Piano Concertos with violinist Pablo Roberto Diemecke and pianist Jorge Federico Osorio.

In earlier recent seasons Maestro Diemecke has guest conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Charlotte Symphony, Winnipeg Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Columbus Symphony, Hartford Symphony, the National Orchestra of Colombia, BBC Symphony, National Symphony in Washington, D.C., and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Houston, Minnesota, Colorado, and Fort Worth.

During the 1998-1999 season Maestro Diemecke led the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico on a triumphant U.S. West Coast tour, celebrating the centennial of famed Mexican composers Carlos Chavez and Silvestre Revueltas. The tour was widely well received and proved to be a major cultural as well as musical event of the season. Mr. Diemecke also directed the National Orchestra of France for the sixth edition of Les Victoires de la Musique Classique et Jazz, which was aired on French television and radio. On this occasion he was joined by, among others, Cecilia Bartoli, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Maria Joao Pires, and Pierre Amoyal.

Mr. Diemecke has collaborated with some of the finest artists of our time, including Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, Ravi Shankar, Ivo Pogorelich, Midori, Shlomo Mintz, Henryk Szeryng, Placido Domingo, and Frederica von Stade. He is also frequently invited to festivals such as the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, the Hollywood Bowl Festival, Finger Lakes (New York), Wolf Trap, Autumno Musicale a Como (Italy), Europalia (Brussels), World Fair Expo Sevilla (Spain), and Festival International Radio France.

An experienced conductor of opera, Maestro Diemecke has served as Music Director of the Bellas Artes Opera of Mexico from 1984-1990, where he led more than 20 productions, including Faust, La Boheme, Salome, Elektra, Ariadne auf Naxos, Der fliegende Hollander, Rigoletto, Turandot, Madama Butterfly, and Romeo et Juliette. He has returned as a guest conductor with new productions of Lohengrin in 1996 and Boris Godunov in 1997, and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in 2005.

Maestro Diemecke is an accomplished composer and orchestral arranger, and has conducted his own composition, 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, which is dedicated to former President Vincente Fox of Mexico, with the Tulsa Philharmonic. Maestro Diemecke’s recent 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.

In August 2002 Mr. Diemecke and the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico were nominated for a Latin GRAMMY Award for their recording of the Chavez piano and violin concertos. In March 2002, Mr. Diemecke 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, its Chorus, and the Chorus of Radio Letona. This is the second time Maestro Diemecke has been honored with a Gold Medal from the Academy of Lyric Recordings. In 2000, the Academy awarded Diemecke the Bruno Walter Orpheus d'Or Prize for Best Opera Conductor for his live recording of Mascagni's Parisina, made at the Radio France Festival during the summer of 1999. Mr. Diemecke has also recorded the music of Revueltas, Chavez, and Moncayo for Sony/Mexico with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Mexico, which have became best-sellers in Mexico, earning the conductor and orchestra the Golden Record Award. Other releases by Maestro Diemecke 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 Chavez and Revueltas, Mexico's greatest composers, and his CD of Revueltas' masterwork La noche de los Mayas has become a recording classic.

Born in Mexico, Enrique Diemecke comes from a German 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 Pierre Monteux.

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