Stuttgart mourns principal bass, 56
mainThe solo double bass player of the Stuttgart State Orchestra Burkhard Mager died this weekend after a long illness. He was 56.
Romanian born, Burkhard was a member of the European Youth Orchestra and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, strongly encouraged by Claudio Abbado and Leonard Bernstein.
He held his principal position in Stuttgart for almost 30 years.
This is much too young. Very sad.
Stuttgart has gotten a “State Orchestra”? Amazing that I never heard of it because I was born and grown up in Stuttgart, I still have a flat there and a lot of friends in the scene. Only they don’t know a “State Orchestra” either! There’s the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker – but they’re not supported by the State, but by the city of Stuttgart. And then we have the Orchestra of the Stuttgart Opera, financed by the city and the country of Baden-Württemberg. And once we had the Südfunk Sinfonie Orchester (once Celibidache’s orchestra), but they’re now in Baden-Baden.
Well, that was it with the “big” symphonic orchestras. The third orchestra in Stuttgart with full time professionals is the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, but that’s that – and now I’m wondering where this bass belong to.
The opera orchestra is called the Stuttgart State Orchestra.
Saxon Broken (and NL) is right:
“Staatsorchester Stuttgart”
https://www.staatsoper-stuttgart.de/staatsorchester/ueber-das-staatsorchester/
Btw: the ‘Südfunk Sinfonie Orchester’ is actually called SWR Symphonieorchester and still has its home in Stuttgart (in 2016 the two SWR orchestras in Baden-Baden/Freiburg and Stuttgart were merged).
oops – I’m obviously stuck in old times. In former times it was just the “Orchester der Stuttgarter Oper. Well, it’s a few years ago and I must admit that by living in England since 7 years I was very rarely in the Stuttgart opera (and it won’t become often because I can’t stand Cornelius Meister. I suppose I’ll be in Munich more often).
Rest in peace, Burkhard.