PROFILE
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES - COMMITMENT TO NEW MUSIC - ORCHESTRA MUSICIAN
From 1970 to 1975 he was teaching in his performance class at the Vienna Conservatory (nowadays City of Vienna Music and Arts Private University ) and trained several students up to the final degree. He held master classes for violin and chamber music in significant institutes at home and abroad, introducing the modern methodology of violin playing in lectures and publications (e.g. Institute for Advanced Musical Studies Montreux, South African College of Music - University of Cape Town, or in Sweden, New Zealand etc.). In Austria he was coaching young musicians in various music schools and as instructor in the National Youth Orchestra.
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An essential aspect of Guth’s professional profile was the intense employment with new music. He was in the board of the ISCM Austria (International Society for Contemporary Music), played as violinist for a long time in the Ensemble 20thCentury of Peter Burwik, as well as in various other musical formations. He was actively supporting the musical avant-garde in event series of experimental concerts which he created for Jeunesse Musicale. He researched fascinating new electronic sounds for the violin with Dieter Kaufmann, pioneer of electro-acoustic music in Austria and with dramatist Peter Turrini the linking between literature and music. A number of pieces for solo violin were dedicated to him and his musical views have been enlarged with projects together with composers like Mauricio Kagel, Vinko Globokar, or Nigel Osborne. Of particular importance was the relation to Luciano Berio, whose Duetti per due Violini were played by Guth with his colleague Annemarie Ortner-Kläring at the world premiere. Berio was also the artistic director of the Orchestra della Toscana at the time and had arranged for Guth to be invited for Strauss concerts. Since then, there have been repeated guest performances at the Teatro Verdi in Florence and in other cities in Tuscany.
Also jazz and popular music belong to Peter Guth’s interests. He doesn’t practice them professionally, but early aroused by his father Karl, who was one of the first jazzmen in Austria, he had always contacts to this form of art. These include unforgettable experiences as performing participant at the International Music Forum Breitenbrunn (1974 and 1975), or the many violin solo passages which composers and arrangers wrote for his recordings with the Big Band of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). His concerts with world stars of this genre Stéphane Grappelli and Antônio Carlos Jobim, which will be mentioned later, are absolute highlights in Guth’s career.
He enjoys the young band funjazztics, founded by his sons with their friends. Maximilian Guth is bandleader and keyboarder, his younger brother Sebastian Guth plays saxophone. ( http://funjazztics.at )
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CONCERTMASTER
Last but not least, Peter Guth’s professional profile was also shaped and enriched as a concertmaster. Already in the Academy Orchestra under the influence of the eminent teacher Hans Swarowsky, then at the first desk of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and from 1976 to 1992 through his position as first concertmaster of the ORF Symphony Orchestra (RSO Vienna), when he also played several concertos for violin and solo parts, such as Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss. This rounds up the comprehensive picture of the versatile artist with all his facets. In 2006 he was awarded the Golden Order of Merit of the County of Vienna.
Rehearsal break with Leonard Bernstein, who conducted his opera "A Quiet Place" in 1986 with the ORF Symphony Orchestra at the Vienna State Opera.
VIENNESE MUSIC AND THE BEGINNING OF THE CAREER AS A CONDUCTOR
In 1975 Peter Guth’s career took an unexpected turn.
The then managing director and violist of the Johann Strauss Ensemble of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra
Prof. Kurt Letofsky appointed him artistic director of this formation from the ranks of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra,
which performed classical dance music with a historically documented instrumentation of six strings and six winds.
Johann Strauss Ensemble of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra - TV broadcast on ZDF
As a stand-up violinist in the tradition of Johann Strauss, he played about 350 concerts with this ensemble until 1982 and on tours through Germany, France, Italy, Scandinavia, the USA and Canada, he was able to acquire an extensive and in-depth knowledge of the repertoire of the Strauss Dynasty and other composers of Viennese music. In addition he learned from audience reactions how to gain interest, attention and enthusiasm.
At that time Guth was one of the first violinists in Vienna with the concern of a continuous care for Classical Dance Music from Old Vienna and to present this cultural heritage on concert-tours around the world. With such commitment, an exceptional career as a conductor and specialist for Viennese Music became apparent in the early 1980s.
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EXPERIENCE AND FURTHER EDUCATION FOR ORCHESTRA CONDUCTING
Already during his studies at the Academy of Music, as concertmaster of the student orchestra, Guth had the opportunity to gather essential instruction from the head of the conducting class Prof. Hans Swarowsky and to exchange ideas with colleagues. Later from the first desk in the professional orchestra he observed various conductors and their ability to motivate and inspire musicians, or their shortcomings and mistakes.
Finally, he developed basic skills as a matriculated trainee in the conducting class and for his first engagements with large symphony orchestras he was able to ask established colleagues for advice. Like this he succeeded to put more and more experience into practice.
INTERNATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS
In 1986 his fellow student Uwe Mund, then GMD (General Music Director) in Gelsenkirchen (Germany), suggested to try conducting a large symphony orchestra and invited him for a New Year's concert at the Theater im Revier. Since then, more than hundred renowned symphony orchestras and international festivals have repeatedly engaged Peter Guth as a guest conductor and sought-after specialist for Viennese music. Concert series, CD recordings and TV galas connect him in regular collaboration with many famous top orchestras, to name but a few:
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, English Chamber Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, San Francisco Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Tonhalleorchester Zürich, Orchestre Lamoureux Paris, Orchestre National de Lille / Lyon/ Belgique, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg / Monte-Carlo, Koninklijk Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaanderen, Orchestra della Toscana Firenze, Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento, Orquesta Santa Carlos Lisboa, Orquestra Sinfónica Brasileira Rio de Janeiro, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Chile.
Die Radio Symphonie Orchester von Berlin / München / Frankfurt / Köln / Stockholm, Oslo,
Symphony Orchestra Tivoli Copenhagen, Bergen / Helsinki Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Iceland Symphony, etc….