The conductor and composer Hans Zender is dead. He died on the night of Wednesday shortly before his 83rd birthday, as reported by the Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR), Zender's longtime employer.
From 1971 to 1984 Zender was chief conductor of the former Radio Symphony Orchestra Saarbrücken. "With sadness and dismay we have learned of the death of former RSO chief conductor Hans Zender," said SR director Thomas Kleist on Wednesday.
Zender was born on November 22, 1936 in Wiesbaden. He studied at the conservatories in Frankfurt and Freiburg. In 1964 he became chief conductor in Bonn, 1968 general music director in Kiel. He moved to Saarbrücken in 1984 to the Hamburg State Opera.
From 1988 he was on the rostrum of the NDR Symphony Orchestra and took over a professorship for composition at the Frankfurt Conservatory. As a guest conductor, he worked in the centers of international music life, including at the Bayreuth Festival. The SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg appointed Zender an honorary member only a few years ago.
"Throughout my life, I started out as a pure practitioner, playing and directing piano, and I did not enjoy theoretical or philosophical discussions at all," Zender once said in an interview with BR-Klassik. That should change. In addition to his conducting activities, which made him known to a broad public, Zender was not only a professor, but also a composer. In 1986 he presented his first opera in Frankfurt with "Stephen Climax". 1993 followed in Stuttgart "Don Quixote de la Mancha". In 2005, the world premiere of "Chief Joseph" took place in Berlin.
In addition, numerous other works such as a "Dialogue with Haydn" for two pianos and three orchestral groups or "33 Changes over 33 Variations" on Beethoven's Diabelli Variations were created. His treatment of Schubert's "Winterreise" for tenor and orchestra is considered particularly sustainable.
