Herbert Blomstedt, who headed San Francisco Symphony from 1985-95, dies at age 99
Herbert Blomstedt, the former head of the San Francisco Symphony from 1985 to 1995, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 99. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1927, Blomstedt relocated to Sweden at the age of two and later studied at Stockholm’s Royal Academy of Music and Uppsala University. He furthered his education at The Juilliard School and Tanglewood Music Center under the tutelage of Leonard Bernstein.
Blomstedt conducted orchestras in Scandinavia and Germany throughout his illustrious seven-decade career, earning Grammy Awards for recordings with the San Francisco Symphony. His final performance with the San Francisco Symphony was on May 15, 1995, in a wheelchair, struggling to conduct Gustav Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. Blomstedt was a Seventh-day Adventist who refrained from conducting rehearsals on Friday and Saturday nights but led performances on those days, considering himself a preacher of music.
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