Daniel Nazareth

Daniel Nazareth (born 8 June 1948 in Bombay, India; died 19 June 2014) was an Indian composer and conductor. He began violin lessons at age of 7. He earned degrees in Commerce and Economics from Bombay University in 1968. He earned a degree in piano the Royal College of Music, London, in 1969. Nazareth later attended the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst and earned an Honours Diploma in Orchestral Conducting in 1975.

Nazareth was a prize winner at the 1974 International Nikolai Malko Conductors Competition in Copenhagen, Denmark. This led to a series of conducting engagements in Scandinavia and an opportunity to study privately with Igor Markevitch. In the summer of 1976, Nazareth was a recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Conducting Fellowship and of the Koussevitsky Music Foundation Conductor's Award at Tanglewood, USA. There, his mentors included Bernstein, Colin Davis and Seiji Ozawa.

On the invitation of Gian Carlo Menotti, Nazareth conducted his first opera, Cosi fan tutte, in the summer of 1977 at the Spoleto Festival, Italy. Nazareth also won the first Ernest Ansermet Conducting Competition in 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Nazareth was music director of the Teatro San Carlo from 1988 to 1990. In 1989, he served as Music Director of the Ente Lirico Festival at the Arena di Verona, Italy.

After the re-unification of Germany, Nazareth served as Chief Conductor of the Orchestra of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk from 1992 to 1996. He and the orchestra celebrated the 15th anniversary of the papacy of Pope John Paul II with a live TV concert at the Vatican in 1993. Video productions with the MDR Television Leipzig included Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Mass in C, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, Mozart’s Requiem and Orff’s Carmina Burana.

In August 2000, Nazareth conducted the Opera di Roma’s Centenary Production of Puccini’s TOSCA at the Roman Olympic Stadium and at the World Expo 2000 in Hannover/ Germany. In July 2002, he conducted the first performance of Gustav Mahler’s 5th Symphony in the New Critical Edition commissioned by the International Gustav Mahler Society, Vienna, at the Bregenz Festival, Austria.

Nazareth's recordings include the world premiere recording of Respighi’s Sinfonia Drammatica for the Marco Polo label. With the Bayerische Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra, Munich, and the Munich Philharmonic he has recorded Messian’s L’Ascension, Richard Strauss’ Aus Italien and other works.

Nazareth’s compositions include three piano trios, instrumental sonatas, Gitanjali Songs to texts by Rabrindranath Tagore, Gustav Mahler Songs, a series of “Concerti Sinfonici” for violin and orchestra, viola and orchestra, cello and orchestra, piano and orchestra, a singspiel "The Leonardo Bridge", an Italian opera, “Fontana dell’ Amore”, set in medieval Tuscany, the cantata "Children of Gandhi" and the Bara'a Symphony.

He wrote the screenplay “Gustav and Alma” that narrates the triumph and tragedy that overcast the last decade of Gustav Mahler’s life.

External links

• Official Website
• Naxos website biography