Thierry Fischer entered the world on September 28, 1957, in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, a territory now incorporated into Zambia. Swiss missionaries raised him there amid the simplicity of a remote village lacking both electricity and running water. When the family relocated to Switzerland, his parents, despite having no musical background themselves, enrolled him in recorder instruction, an activity he embraced without hesitation. At sixteen he turned to the flute, aiming for a position as an orchestral player, and pursued studies with Aurèle Nicolet while performing in the Zurich Opera orchestra and later with an ensemble based in Hamburg.
His appointment as principal flute of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Claudio Abbado marked a turning point, providing the setting for his first appearance on the podium. The year 1988 brought his initial recording project, in which he directed the Orchestre de chambre de Genève through Mozart serenades issued by the Dinemec label. Between 1997 and 2001 he served as chief conductor of the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra, after which he assumed leadership of the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, remaining until 2006. From that point until 2012 he held the same post with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
In 2009 Fischer took the music directorship of the Utah Symphony. Concurrently he led the Nagoya Philharmonic from 2008 to 2011, thereafter retaining an honorary guest conductor title. Successive extensions kept him in Utah beyond the originally planned 2022 conclusion, with the COVID-19 pandemic shifting his departure by one additional year. Guest engagements preceded his appointment in 2020 as music director of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, a position extended through 2027. He also functioned as principal guest conductor of the Seoul Philharmonic from 2017 to 2020.
Fischer has committed numerous sessions to Hyperion, Orfeo, and Reference Recordings, among further companies, concentrating on music from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and devoting multiple releases to composer Frank Martin. A 2023 Hyperion disc presented his account of Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles with the Utah Symphony, bringing his total recorded output past thirty entries by that stage.
Martin: Concerto For 7 Wind Instruments (1949); Polyptyque pour violon solo et deux petits orchestres à cordes (1972-73); Études pour orchestre à cordes (1955-56)
