BIOGRAPHY OF KENNETH KLEIN, music director
Kenneth Klein was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He completed undergraduate studies at Stanford and at the University of Southern California School of Music where he graduated in violin. His quartet was coached by Gregor Piatigorsky, William Primrose and other prominent musicians. He attended private conducting classes from 1959 to 1979 given by Fritz Zweig, a former conductor of the Berlin Opera and former Furtwangler assistant and with Dr. Richard Lert, a past Director in Mannheim and conductor of the Berlin Opera. This period was characterized by his keen involvement in programming the German repertoire and new American works.
Following USC, Kenneth Klein left for Europe to study Wagner opera in Bayreuth with Friedelind Wagner and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. At this time, he was invited by the composer Carlos Chavez to become a guest conductor of the Guadalajara Symphony in Mexico. This lead to his becoming the orchestra's Music Director in 1968, a post which he held for over a decade, championing South American, but notably Mexican composers such as Chavez, Silvestre Revueltas, Blas Galindo, Manuel Enriquez and Pablo Moncayo. In 1977, as a result of an invitation by Pablo Casals, Klein opened the Festival Casals.
Kenneth Klein moved back to the US and to New York in 1980, where he was involved in a series of major orchestra re-building projects in New York, California and the Mid-west as well as directing a summer festival in New Hampshire.
Following the successful conclusion of these projects, Kenneth Klein, with the assistance of violinist Henryk Szerying, formed the New York Virtuosi Chamber Symphony in 1982, made up, at that time, principally of New York Philharmonic musicians. Since its formation, the orchestra has gained a considerable reputation for performing a number of American premieres in addition to fulfilling an important educational role in the New York area. He has taken the orchestra on an acclaimed German tour. Kenneth Klein has been the recipient of two ASCAP awards for his work to promote American music.
Kenneth Klein made his European debut in 1970, conducting the Nuremburg Symphony and Philharmonic Chorus. He toured the former Soviet Union, Romania and Sweden in 1971 and 1972, and made his Paris debut in 1974. His Vienna debut was in 1975 and in 1977, there followed appearances with the Orchestre National de France and Concerts Lamoreux in Paris, the Suissse Romande as well as at the Montreux Festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra before returning for further appearances in Vienna. The same year saw Kenneth Klein's debut at New York's Carnegie Hall and in Canada. In 1978, he returned to Europe to conduct the Bruckner Orchestra of Austria and also in Czechoslovakia and Romania. In 1979, he made his debut at the Rome Festival, and the following year, his London debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra, with Henryk Szerying as soloist.
Kenneth Klein has regularly guest conducted as number of the world's most prestigious ensembles, including the London Symphony, London Philharmonic and, in 1991, the Royal Philharmonic at London's Royal Festival Hall. In 1993, he toured with Moscow's celebrated Bolshoi Ballet, and in 1994 with the New York City Ballet. In 1995, Klein made his debut in Vienna's Musikverein conducting the Vienna Tonkunstler-Orchester and in 1997 with the Moscow Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky Hall.
Kenneth Klein has also made a series of critically acclaimed recordings, for Angel/EMI Classics, which have been reissued on Albany Music, of John Alden Carpenter's Skyscrapers and the East Coast School of American Romantics, as well as a disc of Morton Gould Orchestral Music with the London Philharmonic. Read about the American Romantics disc here. Read about the Morton Gould Orchestral Music disc here. With the same orchestra, he also recorded the Glazunov Violin Concerto for Carlton Classics. Other recordings in his discography include an album of Mexican music with the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico for Unicorn-Kanchana and, with his own New York Virtuosi, an Aaron Copland anthology for Collins Classics and an English music collection featuring Elgar, Britten and Vaughan Williams for Vox and ASV Records. He has recorded Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 and Schumann's Piano Concerto with pianist Gerald Robbins and the Moscow Philharmonic for the 4Tay label (http://www.jamesarts.com/4tay.htm), a review of which can be read at http://classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=1554.
Kenneth Klein has also recorded an album of concertos by Ravel, Saint Saëns and Sierra with the Royal Philharmonic, featuring pianist José Ramos Santana; as well as American composer Robert Beaser's "Songs from The Occasions" with tenor Paul Sperry; and music of American composer Louis Gruenberg.
