Frank Strobel is one of the internationally experienced conductors with an incredibly diverse stylistically diverse repertoire. For years he has been one of the most important protagonists in the interdisciplinary field of film and music, through his commitment film with live orchestra has found its way into leading opera houses and concert halls.

As a guest conductor, Frank Strobel works in film music projects and with symphonic repertoire with orchestras such as the Filarmonica della Scala, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Göteborgs Symfoniker, HR-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchester de Paris, Orchester Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchester National de Belgique , Oslo Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), Seattle Symphony, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Sydney Symphony, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. His own concert series connect him closely with the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Tonhalle Zurich.

Frank Strobel has been particularly at home in the French music scene for some time. In 2023 he premiered in Paris with the Orchestre National de France the new score by David Hudry for “Berlin. Symphony of a big city”. Later on the premiere of the film concert with the feature film “Kaamelott: Premier Volet” by producer, actor and composer Alexandre Astier took place with the Orchestre National de Lyon. Another premiere was the film music concert „Chaplin in Concert. With a smile” under his direction at the Philharmonie de Paris with the Orchestre de Paris. Frank Strobel is also a repeated guest at the “Festival Lumière. Grand Lyon Film Festival”. In February 2021, he conducted at the “Victoires de la Musique.”

Another important French film concert project came to fruition at the Musikfest Berlin and at the Festival Lumière in Lyon in 2019: Abel Gance’s seven-hour silent epic La Roue, with a score specially assembled from 117 works written by French composers between 1880 and 1920. Having reconstructed Sergei Prokofiev’s music for Eisenstein’s films Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Strobel conducted the first performances of his realisations at the Musikfest Berlin. In 2008 an original copy of Metropolis was discovered in Buenos Aires; two years later a fully restored version of the film was premiered at the Berlinale, with Frank Strobel conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. In 2006 at Dresden’s Semperoper he conducted the Staatskapelle Dresden to accompany a reconstruction of the film of Der Rosenkavalier with Richard Strauss’s original music.

Beyond the world of film music, Frank Strobel has achieved international recognition for his first performances and revivals of works by Alfred Schnittke, Franz Schreker, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Siegfried Wagner. The great Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) found Frank Strobel congenial, considering him an ideal interpreter of his works. Strobel now retains the adaptation rights for Schnittke’s music. To this day, the editing rights for his compositions remain with Frank Strobel.

In 2000 Frank Strobel and Beate Warkentien established the Europäische FilmPhilharmonie, an institution dedicated to the artistic development of music and film in the concert hall. This has given rise to such ambitious projects as Matrix Live at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Of special significance in this context is Strobel’s role as an adviser to the TV station ZDF/ARTE on its programming of silent films and this has resulted in notable performances of silent films to the accompaniment of legendary musical works. and this has resulted in notable performances of silent films to the accompaniment of legendary musical works.

In his extensive discography, the first recordings of Alfred Schnittke’s film music suites in Frank Strobel’s arrangement with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra occupy a special place; so far five CDs have been released on the Capriccio label. The last CD in this series was awarded an Opus Klassik 2022.

2023/2024
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