Herbert Blomstedt, the Swedish-American conductor whose career spanned seven decades, has died at the age of 99, according to The Guardian. He continued to conduct and tour into his late 90s, with his final concert earlier this year at age 98.
Born in Massachusetts in July 1927 to Swedish parents, Blomstedt grew up in Sweden and Finland. His conducting tutors included Igor Markevitch, Jean Morel and Leonard Bernstein. He made his conducting debut with the Stockholm Philharmonic in 1954, later serving as principal conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic from 1962 to 1968 and in the same role with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1967 to 1977.
He led the Staatskapelle Dresden from 1975 to 1985 and was music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 1995. He worked with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1998 to 2005 and developed a close relationship with London's Philharmonia, first conducting the orchestra in 2006 at the Edinburgh festival. His last London appearance was in November 2024, conducting Mahler's Ninth Symphony.
Blomstedt's last concert was in May in San Francisco, where he was the symphony orchestra's conductor laureate. He was very frail, and his performance, also of Mahler's Ninth, had to be halted temporarily after he collapsed during the third movement. He was one of the world's leading interpreters of Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Bruckner, and received two Grammys and a Gramophone award.