- Georg Tintner
Georg Tintner CM (22 May 1917 – 2 October 1999) was an
Austria n-born conductor whose career was principally inNew Zealand ,Australia , andCanada .As a child he was a singer in the
Vienna Boys' Choir , directed byFranz Schalk . At the Vienna State Academy he studied composition withJoseph Marx and conducting withFelix Weingartner . Soon he was assistant conductor of theVienna Volksoper .Due to the persecution of Jews, Tintner moved out of Vienna in 1938, arriving in
Auckland ,New Zealand in 1940. He conducted a church choir until after the war, when he took over the Auckland Choral Society in 1947, and the Auckland String Players in 1948. He became a New Zealand citizen in 1946. In 1954, he went toAustralia and became resident conductor of the National Opera of Australia (a private company) before joining theAustralian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera in 1957. Tintner is credited with pioneering televised opera in Australia.He spent a year with the
Cape Town Municipal Orchestra (1966-67) and three years with Sadler's Wells Opera (1967-70) before returning to Australia as Music Director of theWest Australian Opera . In 1974, he rejoined the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera, by then known as the Australian Opera. He became Music Director of theQueensland Theatre Orchestra in 1976.In 1987 he moved to
Canada , where he became director ofSymphony Nova Scotia . In 1998, he was made a Member of theOrder of Canada . On 2 October 1999, after a six-year struggle with cancer, he jumped to his death from the balcony of his 11th-storey Halifax apartment.Tintner was described as "one of the greatest living Bruckner conductors." He recorded a much-praised complete cycle of Bruckner symphonies for the Naxos CD label shortly before the end of his life (recording sessions: 1995-98). Naxos is releasing a "Tintner Memorial Edition" comprising re-releases of some of his earlier recordings of composers other than Bruckner. A disc of Tintner's piano music has also been released by the same label, valuably revealing a side of the man long-forgotten since his student days.
External links
* [http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm5-7/tintner-en.htm Biography]
* [http://www.geocities.com/immortalbruckner/tintner.html Biography]
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=41:56902~T1 Article]
* [http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/tintner.html Georg Tintner - The Gift of Being Simple]
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