Gunther Rost
In 2011 Gunther Rost took over as artistic director of the annual concert series formerly organized by Fritz Haselwander and the Herz-Jesu Church in Graz, to expand it in 2012 to become "Grazer Orgelfrühling" ('Graz Organ Spring'). Since 2017, the festival has been held throughout the whole of Styria under the name "Orgelfrühling Steiermark" ('Organ Spring Sytria').
Already in his school days Gunther Rost performed the complete organ works of Bach publicly.
He has won over a dozen international awards, including the Leipzig Bach Prize or prizes from the ION Competition Nuremberg and the Dallas International Organ Competition. He was a scholarship recipient of the renowned
Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and recipient of the Bavarian State Award for the Advancement of the Arts.
At an early age he was appointed to the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, where he is also head of Organ and Church Music Studies.
He has been a guest lecturer to institutions such as the Royal Academy of Music London, the Chopin Academy Warsaw and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow.
At the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Rost founded the Center for Organ Research, focussing on the further development of the instrument and the critical questioning of historical playing instructions. He was the first to develop a mobile digital concert organ and a modular pipe organ at a European music university.
The artist has worked with Motette, OehmsClassics, Deutsche Grammophon and arte. His collaboration with Petr Eben resulted in the recording of his complete organ works, which also included the reciter Gert Westphal and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. "Rost is by far the best player of this music," comments the American Record Guide.
Gunther Rost's discography also includes works by Bach, Vivaldi, Chopin, Dupré and Alain. About the recording of the Goldberg Variations by J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations, we read in Fono Forum: "Rost's ingenuity and the extraordinary variety of the organ sounds make his recording perhaps the most distinguished one on the market today - harpsichord and piano versions included."
Engagements have taken Gunther Rost to the Vienna and Berlin Konzerthaus, the Philharmonic Hall and Mariinsky Theater of St. Petersburg, the Rheingau Music Festival and the Bach Festival Leipzig. From 2012 to 2014 he was organist in residence with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. Gunther Rost has worked with artists and ensembles such as Christoph Prégardien, Elīna Garanča, the Choir of the Bavarian State Radio or the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig.
Since 2016, Gunther Rost has dedicated himself more to conducting again. In 2018 he founded the 4D Orchestra ('4D - Orchestrer Steiermark), which among other things rediscovers central repertoire for the organ in a new way.