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Sixten Ehrling, Swedish Conductor, Dies at 86 Swedish conductor Sixten Ehrling, who conducted a number of world-renowned orchestras and headed the conducting program at Juilliard for 14 years, died on February 13 in Manhattan at age 86.
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| Sixten Ehrling rehearsing the Juilliard Orchestra in the spring of 1974. (Photo by Whitestone Photo) |
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Born in Malmoe, Sweden, in 1918, Ehrling studied piano, violin, and composition at Stockholm's Royal Academy of Music. While still a student, he worked as a coach at the Swedish Royal Opera before making his professional conducting debut there in 1940. A year later, he joined the Dresden State Opera in Germany and worked under Karl Böhm before returning to Sweden in 1942. He was appointed music director of the Swedish Royal Opera in 1953 and remained there until 1960, when he left to come to the U.S.Ehrling made his American debut with the Detroit Symphony in 1961 and became the orchestra's music director in 1963, taking on the post previously held by Paul Paray. During his 10 years there, he conducted 722 concerts that included 24 world premieres, and was credited with building the orchestra into one of the nation's most highly regarded. He was also instrumental in establishing the Meadowbrook Music Festival in Rochester, Mich., where the Detroit Symphony was based during the summer.Ehrling left Detroit in 1973 for New York, where he became head of the conducting program at Juilliard (succeeding Alfred Wallenstein) until he retired in 1987. His students included several young conductors now prominent on the orchestral scene, among them Myung-Whun Chung, JoAnn Falletta, Andrew Litton, and Andreas Delfs. Under Erhling's direction, the Juilliard Orchestra played at Carnegie Hall in a 1979 concert honoring the 40th anniversary of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, and presented the first performance in New York of Bartok's "Kossuth" Symphony in 1981, in honor of the Bartok centenary.The same year he arrived in New York, Ehrling made his Metropolitan Opera debut, conducting Britten's Peter Grimes. Over a period of five seasons at the Met, he also conducted Wagner's "Ring" cycle (with Birgit Nilsson) and the Met premiere of Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, as well as operas by Verdi, Puccini, and Saint-Saëns. He appeared as guest conductor with many of the world's great orchestras (returning frequently to the Swedish Opera until the 1990s), and served as principal guest conductor at the Denver Symphony from 1979 to 1985. In 1993, he was appointed chief conductor and musical advisor to the three orchestras at the Manhattan School of Music.Ehrling's discography includes a highly regarded recording of Nielsen's Symphony No. 3 (with the Danish National Orchestra) on Audiofon, and a set of the Berwald symphonies on Bis. He was knighted by the Finnish government in 1970 for his activities on behalf of the music of Sibelius."Mr. Ehrling prized subtlety and efficiency over showiness, and although he was a lyrical conductor at times, he seemed mostly to emphasize structural logic and forward movement over Romanticism and fluidity," wrote Allan Kozinn in Ehrling's New York Times obituary. "His gestures tended to be focused rather than grandly sweeping. Yet his readings, whether at the head of a professional orchestra or a student ensemble, were invariably models of interpretive clarity."Maestro Ehrling donated his collection of scores to The Juilliard School Library. Many of them include his annotations and markings, as well as dedications to him from the composers. He frequently noted the dates of his own performances of the work in his scores, and his collection serves as an important document of his career.Ehrling is survived by his wife, a former prima ballerina with the Royal Swedish Ballet, and two daughters who live in Colorado.
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