Günther Herbig divides his activities between Europe and North America. His conducting career has been equally distinguished on both continents. In 1984 he moved from East Germany to the United States and served for ten years as Music Director first of the Detroit and later of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Herbig’s musical training took place in Central Europe where he studied with Herman Abendroth, Herbert von Karajan and Hermann Scherchen. He began his career with appointments in the East German cities of Weimar and Potsdam. In 1972 he was named General Music Director of the Dresden Philharmonic and held the same post with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to 1983. Turning to Western Europe he became Principle Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in 1979. Soon he was invited to conduct such major ensembles as the London Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and the Israel Philharmonie. In the United States he started in 1979 as Principle Guest Conductor of the Dallas Symphony and has since conducted the Orchestras of New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, San Francisco and Los Angeles amongst numerous others. He has toured America several times with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and in 1989 conducted the orchestra on a European tour. In 1991 he led the Toronto Symphony to Europe after having toured with them extensively in the United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.
Günther Herbig has made nearly forty recordings with the leading East German orchestras, including cycles of Haydn and Brahms symphonies. His most recent releases include Beethoven’s Third Symphony and Fifth Symphony, Schubert’s Eighth Symphony, Brahms’s First Symphony, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben with the BBC Philharmonic, and other recordings with London orchestras. From 2001 to 2006 he was the Chief Conductor of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra with which he also recorded.
