Helmuth Rilling, conductor
“Music should never be merely comfortable, never fossilized, never soothing. It should startle people and reach deep down inside them, forcing them to reflect.” This is Helmuth Rilling's personal Credo.Helmuth Rilling was born in Stuttgart in 1933, and is known throughout the world as an acclaimed conductor, pedagogue and Bach scholar. In 1954, he founded his internationally-recognized chorus - the Gächinger Kantorei. Eleven years later, the Bach Collegium Stuttgart was added as the choir's regular orchestral partner. It was then that Mr. Rilling began his intensive work with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. An equally fervent advocate of neglected Romantic choral music, Rilling has also regularly commissioned and presented contemporary choral music by significant compos-ers of our time. Together with his own ensembles or as a guest conductor, he performs on the international concert podium throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, Asia, and South America. Additionally, he has cultivated a special friendship with the Israel Philhar-monic Orchestra for more than thirty years. Professor Rilling is co-founder and Artistic Director of the Oregon Bach Festival, begun in 1970 and now recognized as one of Amer-ica's most prestigious music festivals. In 1981, he founded the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, which at first focused on furthering the music of J.S. Bach through the present day and in the course of time grew as an exceptional institution which today can be described best in the three major fields of it's activities: ensembles (Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart) - performance (Akademiekonzerte, Bachwoche Stuttgart and MUSIKFEST STUTTGART) - education and outreach (master classes, sym-posia, children's programmes).Working with young musicians from around the globe has always been a central focus of Rilling's work, and led 2001 to the formation of the Festiva-lensemble Stuttgart, an international youth chorus and orchestra for special performance and recording projects (until 2009). Rilling presents workshops for students in all parts of the world in his international “Bach Academies”.Helmuth Rilling's inexhaustible, creative activity is documented in hundreds of CD, radio and television productions. He was the first to record a significant number of cantatas by J.S. Bach, and was the artistic vision be-hind the International Bachakademie's critically-acclaimed project to record all Bach's works, released as 172 CDs during the Bach anniversary year in 2000. In the same year, Rilling won the coveted Grammy Award for his recording of Krzysztof Penderecki´s Credo, and was again nominated in 2001 for his recording of Wolfgang Rihm´s Deus Pas-sus. Recent recordings include works of Haydn, Händel, and Gubaidulina [The Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ according to St. John, "Echo Klassik" Award in 2008], as well as a live recording with the 2007 Festival Ensemble Stuttgart of Britten's War Requiem ["Editor's Choice Award" of the British Gramophone Magazine.]The recipient of numerous international awards, Helmuth Rilling received the UNESCO International Music Prize in 1994, and the Theodor Heuss Prize Taten der Versöhnung [Deeds of Reconciliation] in 1995. In 2003, he became an Honorary Member of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences, and in 2008 - on the occasion of his 75th birthday - he was awarded the Staufer Gold Medal, the highest award of the State of Baden-Württemberg.Recent appearances include the premiere of Robert Levin's completion of Mozart's Mass in C Minor in 2005 and Bach's Mathew Passion in 2007 in performances at Carnegie Hall, New York. In 2008, Rilling presented concert programs in Milan, Taipei, the United States, and at the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. He conducted an extended concert tour with the Gächinger Kan-torei Stuttgart and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in March 2009, and in December, will present Handel's Messiah with the choir and New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall. 
