Herbert Blomstedt has died at the age of 99
Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt passed away peacefully at the age of 99, surrounded by his family at his home in Gothenburg.
Herbert Blomstedt was born in 1927 to Swedish parents in Springfield, Massachusetts (USA). He spent his childhood in Sweden and Finland before the family settled permanently in Sweden. He studied violin and musicology in Stockholm and Uppsala and subsequently continued his conducting studies in the U.S. and Europe. Among his teachers and influential artistic mentors were Igor Markevitch and Leonard Bernstein, with whom he collaborated at Tanglewood.
In 1985, he assumed the position of music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and in 1995, he became music director of the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg. In 1998, he was appointed Gewandhauskapellmeister in Leipzig. Among the numerous honors bestowed upon Herbert Blomstedt are the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, the Grand Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, and numerous honorary doctorates. In 2026, his extraordinary contribution to music was recognized with the Japanese Praemium Imperiale, one of the most prestigious international awards in the arts. On November 4, 2026, Blomstedt, who remained active as a conductor until the very end, passed away in Gothenburg at the age of 99.
