Camerata Franconia
Camerata Franconia, founded in 2013, consists of eminent musicians from many European nations and from the Nürnberg-Fürth-Erlangen metropolitan region. Its artistic director Prof. Dorian Keilhack has worked with these performers in the course of his many assignments at home and abroad. He was thus able to secure the services of the violinist Prof. Eva Bindere (Riga) as his orchestra leader, a position she had held for over 20 years in the Kremerata Baltica ensemble. Other important members include the cellists Prof. Denis Severin (Bern / Lausanne) and Tilmann Stiehler (Director of the Erlangen Music Institute) and the bassoonist Prof. Christina Faludy. Alongside these leading artists, the Camerata Franconia will enable up to 15 academy students from Germany and abroad to present themselves to the public and gain critical artistic impetus. The Camerata Franconia has chosen Erlangen as its base on account of the city’s reputation for welcoming foreigners. Erlangen has learnt in the course of its history, having accepted the Huguenots in the 17th century and an influx of refugees after the Second World, that people from all over the world represent a major resource for the development of the city. While upholding its high artistic standards, this top-class ensemble consciously fosters international understanding and integration. All guest musicians from abroad are privately accommodated with families in the city of Erlangen. Intensive international links thus arise between the people of Erlangen and artists from abroad. Another of the orchestra’s aims is expressed in its Music Education programmes in Erlangen schools. The Camerata Franconia has accordingly assumed the patronage of the Christian-Ernst-Gymnasium, a high school for music and drama in Erlangen. Rehearsals are held in the concert hall of Wohnstift Rathsberg in Erlangen and are open to the residents of this retirement home, so that seniors with limited mobility have access to the orchestra’s performances. The Camerata Franconia Association and the Friends of the Camerata Franconia are responsible for the ensemble’s operating structures. The Richter concert agency has assumed national and international representation.
The conductor and pianist Dorian Keilhack comes from a family of musicians that has its roots in England, Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Israel.
After studying piano and conducting at the conservatoires in Nürnberg and Freiburg and at the celebrated Juilliard School in New York (with Werner Andreas Albert, Otto Werner Müller and Ulrich Weder among others) he gained further artistic insights from Leon Fleisher, Christoph Eschenbach and Georg Schmöhe.
Having won numerous international prizes in piano competitions, Keilhack initially embarked upon a career at the piano that took him from Europe to North and South America. He performed as soloist with such orchestras as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, MDR Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony, the philharmonic orchestras of Cracow and Jena, and the Dortmund State Orchestra.
Dorian Keilhack debuted with the Neue Philharmonie Munich in May 2013 and accompanied the orchestra on a tour of Italy with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and other works. Since 2013 he has been Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Camerata Franconia: a chamber orchestra consisting of 40 top musicians from across Europe.
Dorian Keilhack was appointed Professsor of Conducting in February 2014 at the Landeskonservatorium Innsbruck (a department of the Mozarteum University), where he directed the Opera School and Orchestra. Concerts with the Vogtland Philharmonie, Collegium Musicum Pommersfelden and the Orchestra of the Gauting Friends of Music, who had appointed him as successor to their long-serving conductor Ulrich Weder in 2013, featured in the new season’s programme.
The Vogtland Philharmonie has appointed Dorian Keilhack as its Principal Conductor with effect from the 2020/2021 season. As permanent guest conductor, he will be giving more than 30 concerts there in the 2019/2020 season.
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