VIENNA (AFP) – The world-famous New Year’s Concert, broadcast as far as Uruguay and Australia and normally sold out a year in advance, will be in fresh hands on January 1, with Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Moest at its helm.

This will be the first time that Welser-Moest, 50, has the honour of conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in its traditional New Year’s waltz fest.

The cultural event, broadcast in over 70 countries as well as on the Internet, is expected to draw some 50 million viewers and listeners, from Albania and Australia to India, China, Russia and the United States.

It will also be shown for the second time in high-definition (HD) on the Internet site of Austrian broadcaster ORF (http:/TVthek.ORF.at).

Welser-Moest, only the sixth Austrian to conduct a New Year’s Concert, follows in the footsteps of giants such as Herbert von Karajan, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta and Georges Pretre, who conducted this year’s event.

But in an interview with AFP, he was also keen to point out his “personal and family links” to the composers whose waltzes are performed in Vienna’s gilded Musikverein hall every January 1.

“My great-great-great grandfather owned the famous Hietzing casino, the Cafe Dommayer, where both the Amazonen Polka and the Debut Quadrille were premiered: that was Johann Strauss Junior’s first public appearance on October 15, 1844,” he said proudly.

The two pieces have thus been included in Saturday’s programme.

Selected — as were his predecessors — by the Philharmonic’s musicians, who have managed the orchestra since 1842, Welser-Moest will be the 15th conductor to lead a New Year’s Concert since the first in 1939.

“It is something special: because of the music and because

Article source: Read More