Herbert Blomstedt was born in Massachusetts in 1927, the son of Adolf Blomstedt, a Free Church pastor. The family moved back to Sweden when Herbert was a couple of years old, and he also spent a few years in Finland while growing up.
Blomstedt studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm and Uppsala University, and at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York before making his debut with the Royal Swedish Philharmonic in 1954.
The career begins
Herbert Blomstedt then began his long career as chief conductor of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra at the age of 27.
“That’s where I started my career. It was my first orchestra, and I have many wonderful memories from there,” he said in an interview with TT in 2026.
There he laid the foundation for an international reputation that later took him to leading orchestras in several of the world’s music capitals.
Among other things, he was a guest conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
He was also chief conductor of, among others, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig. He later became an honorary citizen of Leipzig.
Documentary for the BBC
In 1965 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and in 1999 he was appointed an honorary doctor of philosophy at the University of Gothenburg.
In 2024, Herbert Blomstedt gave a summer lecture at the age of 97. His activity at such an advanced age attracted attention. For example, a documentary film crew from the British BBC followed him during his guest appearance in Norrköping in 2026.
“They probably think it’s an exciting undertaking, with an almost 100-year-old conductor making a fresh start with the same orchestra he started with,” he said.
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