"Rahbari is one of the extremely rare interpreters... to express the elan and unshakable hope which places this composition out of the ordinary." Repertoire magazine review of Alexander Rahbari conducting Brahms' German Requiem for Naxos.
The conductor is now an Austrian citizen and lives with his wife and three children in a beautiful farm house in lower Austria. Something of a new Renaissance man, Rahbari is a talented artist and has painted portraits of many well-known musicians. His charming home was also designed by himself.
Alexander Rahbari was the recipient of several major awards early in his conducting career. In 1977 he won the prestigious Gold Medal at the Besancon International Conductors' Competition and followed this with a silver medal at the Geneva Competition. Noticed at this and other events by Herbert von Karajan, Rahbari was invited by him to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. After this triumphant debut with the orchestra, further engagements followed: in 1980, 1982 and 1984. Karajan also paid Rahbari the enormous compliment of asking him to be his assistant at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 1980.
In 1985, Alexander Rahbari was invited by the Czech Philharmonic to become their Permanent Guest Conductor and it was during this period that he was awarded the Dvorak medal for his outstanding work with the Czech Philharmonic.
Also from 1985 Rahbari became Guest Conductor with the Belgian Radio and Television Orchestra, Brussels - the "BRTN" - and served as Chief Music Director from 1988 until 1996. It was during his time with the orchestra that he became well known for his recordings of the standard orchestral repertoire together with operas, contemporary music and choral works and in 1994 he was honoured with the Fuga Trophy by the Belgian Composers' Association for his outstanding achievements with the orchestra. In 1996 Rahbari became Chief Music Director of the Virtuosi di Praga.
In addition to his work as a conductor, as Chief Music Director of Koch Discover International (which he founded in 1992) Rahbari has discovered many young soloists and ensembles, helping them to make their first recordings and promoting them on the international scene.
For Naxos, Alexander Rahbari is best known as a conductor on Opera Classics with his redoubtable BRTN or the Czech-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra: Carmen, Cavalleria Rusticana, Madama Butterfly, I Pagliacci, Rigoletto, Tosca, La Traviata and especially Manon Lescaut which is held by many to be the finest of the modern versions.
Besides this considerable output, Alexander Rahbari has attracted warm critical praise for his recordings of symphonies and symphonic works by Debussy, Bartok, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Schumann and Brahms. The German Requiem by the latter composer was a perfect framework for the creative synergy between the conductor and the soprano Miriam Gauci - so evident in their operatic work on Naxos - to blossom in a new context.
Alexander Rahbari has also found time to work for the Marco Polo label, recording albums of Flemish romantic music and a delightful pot-pourri survey of works for saxophone and orchestra.
October 2001
