Bernard Johan Herman Haitink

Bernard Johan Herman Haitink was born in Amsterdam and studied violin and conducting at the Amsterdam Conservatorium. In 1956, when Carlo Maria Giulini fell ill, the twenty-seven-year-old Haitink stepped in to conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Cherubini's Requiem. In 1961, following the death of Eduard van Beinum, he was appointed chief conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, a position he held with peerless distinction for twenty-seven years until 1988.

Haitink was celebrated for his ego-free conducting style, allowing the orchestra's natural warmth and golden balance to breathe. His complete recorded cycles of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Dmitri Shostakovich remain monumental cornerstones of recorded music. He served as principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, music director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and principal conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He gave his emotional farewell concert at the Lucerne Festival in September 2019 at age ninety.