RONALD ZOLLMAN

…Master performer of these pages and of so many other ones of the music of our time as much as of all times.                                                                                     Henri Dutilleux (Brussels February 15th, 2007)

Ronald ZOLLMAN was born in Antwerp, Belgium, and began his musical training at the age of four. After attending the courses of the Royal Conservatories of Antwerp and Brussels, he became a pupil of Igor Markevitch and Nadia Boulanger in 1967, in Paris.

Since 1973, his career has expanded rapidly. He appeared as a guest conductor with the best orchestras on all continents : BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Residentie Orchestra, Orchester des Hessischen Rundfunks, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Swedish Radio Orchestra,  ....
He has been the guest of major European festivals, such as Edinburgh, Flanders, Warsaw Autumn, Festival Estival in Paris,  Gulbenkian in Lisbon and London  Proms.

Ronald ZOLLMAN not only dedicates himself to the great symphonic works of the traditional repertoire : he is  very active in the field of opera and is also particularly noted for his commitment to contemporary music. Zollman has a rising reputation as an opera conductor : he conducted with great success a large number of performances at the Belgian National Opera (a.o. Don Giovanni, Cosi fan Tutte, La Bohème, Albert Herring and A Rake’s Progress) ; in 1984 he made an acclaimed debut at London’s English National Opera with La Traviata, which was soon followed with performances of The Turn of the Screw with The Scottish Opera. For the BBC he recorded Henze’s Der Prinz von Homburg, and the performances of Don Giovanni that he led at the Banff Summer Festival were considered as the highlight of this Canadian major event.

As far as contemporary music is concerned, Ronald ZOLLMAN has worked regularly with the London Sinfonietta, and at Pierre Boulez’s  request, he conducted the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris, for the first  of many times in 1982.

From 1989 till 1993, Ronald ZOLLMAN was Musical Director of the National Orchestra of Belgium, a position he then held since 1993 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of UNAM in Mexico City. In September 2002 he took the Music Directorship and Principal Conductorship of the Northern Israel Symphony, Haifa.

During the last years Ronald ZOLLMAN added several CDs to his discography : following  Mahler’s First Symphony with the Orchestre Mondial des Jeunesses Musicales, recorded live in Berlin, there were recordings with the National Orchestra of Catalunya, the Basler Sinfonie Orchester, the Zürcher Kammerorchester, the Northern Sinfonia, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, with his own orchestra in Mexico City and with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Also active in the world of film music, Ronald ZOLLMAN recorded the soundtrack for “Le Maître de Musique” (“The Master of Music”), the award-winning motion picture featuring José Van Dam, a nominee for the Best Foreign Picture at the Academy Awards in Hollywood. The musical quality of this particular soundtrack was recognized with the award of a Golden Record.

In July 2001, Ronald ZOLLMAN premiered with unanimous critical appraisal John Casken’s opera God’s Liar at the Almeida Festival (London). Its revival at La Monnaie in October of the same year was equally well received.

In March 2003, he conducted the National Orchestra of the Polish Radio for an EBU concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of Prokofiev’s death. He also took part in the Festival “les Folles Journées” in Nantes, conducting 10 concerts there, all dedicated to Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt. More recently, Ronald ZOLLMAN enjoyed a very successful debut with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague. His concerts with this prestigious ensemble have led to immediate invitations as their guest conductor. In May 2007 Ronald ZOLLMAN made his debut with the Orchestre de Paris at Salle Pleyel (Paris), conducting them at the occasion of their tribute concert to the memory of Mstislav Rostropovitch. In the summer of 2008 he shared the musical direction of the Orchestra Academica of the Campos do Jordao Festival (Brazil) with Kurt Masur, and he will soon be the guest of the Tokyo Philharmonic for concerts at the famous Suntory Hall.

August 2008

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