Howard Griffiths

Conductor Howard Griffiths has accumulated an unusually extensive series of guest engagements with orchestras throughout Europe. In addition to those appearances, he has participated in more than 100 recordings, both as a guest conductor and during his extended leadership of Switzerland’s Zürcher Kammerorchester and Germany’s Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester.

Born in Hastings on England’s south coast on February 24, 1950, Griffiths trained at the Royal College of Music in London. He relocated to Switzerland in 1981 and has remained there, maintaining a personal website that appears only in German. Nevertheless, he preserved connections with British ensembles; after an initial collaboration with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1993 at London’s Barbican Hall, he returned regularly to that group. Between 1994 and 1997 he held the post of principal guest conductor with the Oxford Orchestra da Camera. His first recording with the English Chamber Orchestra appeared on the Novalis label in 1991 and featured works by the little-known Classical composers J.F.X.D. Stalder and Constantin Reindl. He has sustained a focus on music by lesser-known figures and has also performed frequently with England’s Royal Northern Sinfonia.

From 1996 to 2006 Griffiths served as chief conductor and artistic director of the Zürcher Kammerorchester, and from 2007 to 2018 he led the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester in Frankfurt. With the Zürcher ensemble he traveled to Eastern Europe, Turkey, and East Asia. His guest engagements have encompassed an unusually broad range of orchestras, among them the Royal Philharmonic in London, the Tapiola Sinfonietta, the Orquesta Nacional de España, and the Polish Chamber Orchestra. On concert platforms he has partnered with artists such as trumpeter Maurice André, soprano Kathleen Battle, violinist Joshua Bell, and historical pianist Rudolf Buchbinder.

Beyond his interest in overlooked eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scores, Griffiths maintains specialties in contemporary music, Swiss music, and Turkish music. He has collaborated with leading composers of the present day, among them Hans Werner Henze, for whose Requiem he conducted the Swiss premiere in the composer’s presence, as well as George Crumb, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Arvo Pärt. His extensive discography documents work with many of the orchestras he has directed and appears on labels including CPO, Koch Schwann, Profil, and Sony Classical. Recordings of unfamiliar Classical and Romantic symphonic works have largely been made for CPO with a variety of ensembles. He remained active during the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing ten albums between 2020 and 2023, several of them devoted to Mozart piano concertos with the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg and various soloists on the Alpha label. In 2024 he returned to CPO with an album of viola concertos by C.P.E. Bach and Johann Gottlieb Graun, performed by violist Mathis Rochat and the Camerata Schweiz.