Honorary Conductors
Horst Stein
Stein was born in 1928, by coincidence in the same city as Hans Knappertsbusch and Günter Wand, Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal in Germany's Ruhr region); in his 20s, he had also been assistant to Joseph Keilberth. So it must have seemed natural that, during a successful and busy career in leading German cities and opera houses (not to mention the Suisse Romande Orchestra), Stein also guested in Bamberg from 1966 onwards.
Herbert Blomstedt
Born in the U.S. to Swedish parents, Herbert Blomstedt began his musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and at the University of Uppsala. He later studied conducting at the Juilliard School in New York, contemporary music in Darmstadt and renaissance and baroque music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He worked with Igor Markevich in Salzburg and Leonard Bernstein in Tanglewood.