Stephen Laurence Kramer
Stephen Kramer, conductor and pianist, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He studied piano, composition, viola and conducting at the Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna. He then went on to continue his conducting studies with Hans Swarowsky in Vienna, Felix Prohaska in Hannover, Charles Bruck in Paris and Rafael Kubelik in Munich. He began his career as korrepetitor at the Niedersaechsisches Staatstheater in Hannover, the Teatro del Liceo in Barcelona, and at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, where he was summoned by Wolfgang Sawallisch as his assistant for the centennial production of Wagner’s “Goetterdaemmerung.” He then served as permanent conductor in the opera houses of Salzburg and Linz, and as guest conductor in the Cologne and Innsbruck opera houses. In 1987 he was sent by Wolfgang Wagner, director of Bayreuth, to the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto as musical assistant to Spiros Argiris and Gian Carlo Menotti for their production of “Parsifal.”
