Michael Gielen

The German-born conductor Michael Gielen was a widely recognized specialist in the avant-garde music of Central Europe, with an impressive ability to digest and interpret even very complex scores. He was also a noted composer. Gielen was born in Dresden on July 20, 1927. An uncle on his mother's side was pianist and Arnold Schoenberg associate and interpreter Eduard Steuermann. Gielen's mother, Rose, was Jewish, and the family's peril deepened in the late 1930s. When his father, a stage director, found a position at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the family fled ...