Strauss Festival Orchester Wien New Year Concert

With dancelike lightness Willy Büchler, first guest conductor of the Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna since 20 years, has been able to entrance his audiences.

Buoyancy, dedication, sensibility and humour are characteristics of his incomparable style of making music, based on youthfulness, honest enthusiasm and long-time experience of multifaceted activity.

He was born in Vienna, where he studied violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts with his professors Josef Sivo and Michael Frischenschlager and became himself a professor of violin at the Landeskonservatorium in Vorarlberg already at the age of 20. Back in Vienna he was sub leader of first violins in the Vienna Radio Symphony and also taught at the University of Music.

In 1992 Willy Büchler founded together with three members of the Wiener Symphoniker the nowadays well-known Eos-Quartet, which performs since several years acclaimed subscription concerts in the Wiener Konzerthaus. In 1995 he was appointed as leader of the Wiener Symphoniker.

In his concerts with the Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna he conducts playing the violin, like Johann Strauss in his time, attaining a performance of pure Viennese style and tradition. Whether in Dortmund’s new concert hall, in Tokyo’s famous Suntory Hall, or at home in Vienna at the New Year’s Concerts in the Wiener Konzerthaus, Willy Büchler with his charismatic charm reaps standing ovations from his delighted audiences. ?

Michiko Hayashi graduated from Tokyo College of Music. She completed the graduate course of Toho Gakuen College Music Department, the course of Nikikai Opera Studio, and the first term of the New National Theatre Tokyo Opera Studio.
She studied in Munich on a fellowship for overseas study from the Japanese Ministry of Culture. Hayashi won the top prize at the 2003 Mitropoulos Competition for singers, held in Athens. She was also awarded the 5th Hotel Okura Music Award.
In 2002, Michiko Hayashi made her opera debut as Hansel in Hansel und Gretel at the New National Theatre. She received high praise for her performance as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier in a co-production by Nikikai and the Cologne Opera in 2003, and for performances in many other operas including Le nozze di Figaro (as Cherubino), Berg’s Lulu (3-act version/Japan premiere), Don Giovanni (as Zerlina), La clemenza de Tito (as Sesto), La Forza del Destino (as Preziosilla), I Capuleti e I Montecchi (as Romeo), and Carmen (in the title role). She also performed the role of Creosa in the Japan premiere of Reimann’s Medea in 2012, presented for the 50th anniversary of the Nissay Theater, the 50th anniversary of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, and the 60th anniversary of Nikikai. In 2013, she appeared in the performances of Die Fledermaus as Orlofsky and Le barbier de S?ville as Rosina.
In all of these roles, she captivated audiences with her superb singing voice and remarkable stage presence.
Together with major Japanese and non-Japanese orchestras, under the direction of conductors such as Myung-whun Chung, Paavo Jarvi and Sylvain Cambreling, Hayashi has participated in performances of religious works including Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Mahler’s “Resurrection” and 4th Symphony, Handel’s Messiah and Verdi’s Requiem, and other works including Brahms’s Alt-Rhapsodie, Berg’s Sieben fr?he Lieder, and Chausson’s Poem of Love and the Sea. She has been acclaimed for her sensitive and richly expressive singing.

Since its foundation in 1978 the Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna has established itself with splendid performances at music festivals, TV-concerts and worldwide tours, as well as with its CD- and DVD-recordings as an internationally renowned ensemble for the authentic interpretation of Viennese music. Due to its permanent cast, also with a new generation of highly qualified and experienced musicians, the orchestra can assert its leading position with highest artistic claims since more than 30 years.

Peter Guth, the internationally renowned Johann Strauss specialist shares the musical direction with his younger colleague Willy Büchler, concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony. True to the tradition of the Strauss-Dynasty, they both conduct also playing the violin. With 21 guest performances up to now, the SFO belongs to the favourites of the Japanese audience. The musicians from Vienna also caused quite a stir as pioneers of cultural exchange with China, which they have visited 14 times since 1993. In recent years they have captured the audiences of Eastern Europe’s concert halls with spectacular successes from Bucharest, Kiev and Minsk to St. Petersburg, Moscow and Yekaterinburg.

Highlights in the orchestra’s history include regular appearances in the major musical centres and collaborations with prominent soloists, such as the 1999 Strauss-anniversary TV-Gala in the Wiener Musikverein with legendary film star Gregory Peck as the host. Since the millennium 2000 the annual New Year’s Galas of the Strauss Festival Orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Wiener Konzerthaus are a fixed part of the Viennese concert calendar. Live CD-recordings and 2010 also on DVD are a representative testimonial to this. Stylistic truth and genuine sound, Viennese charm and the joy of playing music are characteristic features of the Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna. It receives enthusiastic acclaim everywhere and conveys the timeless fascination of Viennese music.