Concert Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Overture to Idomeneo, K. 366
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216 (feat. Sibbi Bernhardsson)
Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
About the Featured Musicians
Stefan Willich is the founder and conductor of the World Doctors Orchestra. He studied violin, chamber music, and conducting in Stuttgart and Berlin, and has participated in prestigious conducting workshops with Sergiu Celibidache (Munich), Leon Fleisher (Boston, Tanglewood) and Leon Barzin (Paris). Besides his performances with WDO, he regularly appears as guest conductor mainly in Germany and the USA where he is the principal guest conductor of the CityMusic Cleveland Orchestra.
His professional path, however, first led him into medicine, where he became a highly regarded internist and epidemiologist, focusing on cardiovascular disease, prevention, health economics, integrative medicine, and arts and medicine. For several years he worked at Harvard University in Boston, and in 1995 was appointed Professor and Director of the Institute of Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics at the Charite – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a post he continues to hold to this day. From 2012 to 2014, Stefan Willich was President of the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. In 2021, he received the Alumni Award of Merit from the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the highest award for former graduates of the institution.
As music director he led WDO to great success. Particular highlights include performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Berlin in 2010 for the World Health Summit, and Mahler's Second Symphony (Resurrection) in Washington in 2011 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of September 11. He has worked together with outstanding soloists including Peter Zazofsky, Sergey Khachatryan, Tanja Becker-Bender, Aida-Carmen Soanea, Tamaki Kawakubo, Wenzel Fuchs, Anja Kampe, Jeanine De Bique, Falk Struckmann, Jochen Kowalski, Alexei Lubimov, Xavier de Maistre, Delphine Haidan, Emily Bear, Cunmo Yin, Evelyn Glennie, Alexandru Tomescu and with the Vienna Boys’ Choir.
Icelandic violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson joined the Oberlin Conservatory faculty in 2017 after performing for the previous 17 years with the Pacifica Quartet, with which he won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance, Musical America Ensemble of the Year honors, and the Avery Fisher Career Grant.
As a member of the Pacifica Quartet, Bernhardsson appeared in more than 90 concerts worldwide each year, including engagements in Wigmore Hall (London), the Vienna Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall (New York), and other major venues. He has performed at the Edinburgh Festival, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, and the Reykjavík Arts Festival, and has collaborated with Menahem Pressler, Yo-Yo Ma, Jörg Widmann, Lynn Harrell, Leon Fleisher, the Emerson String Quartet, Johannes Moser, and members of the Guarneri and Cleveland quartets. His television appearances include The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, and the MTV Europe Music Awards with Icelandic artist Björk. He appears on 16 recordings with the Pacifica Quartet and has recorded the violin music of Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson and the sonatas for violin and piano by Franz Schubert.
Bernhardsson serves as director of the Cooper International Violin Competition at Oberlin and as artistic director of Iceland’s Harpa International Music Academy. He gives regular concerts and master classes in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and has appeared as a soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, CityMusic Cleveland, and other ensembles.
Bernhardsson is a 1995 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory. His teachers include Guðný Guðmundsdóttir, Almita and Roland Vamos, Mathias Tacke, and Shmuel Ashkenasi. He previously served on the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.