Hanspeter Gmür was born in the Swiss town of St Gallen and since 1980 has served as City Music Director in Friedrichshafen. He had his early musical training as a chorister at the Foundation School of the great monastery of Einseideln, before going on to the Conservatory in Lucerne and then in Munich. He had his first success in 1953, at the age of nineteen, as founder and conductor of the Collegium Musicum Lucerne, proceeding thereafter to a series of conducting engagements and subsequent appointment as Director of the City Opera in Klagenfurt. He has made a number of recordings, in particular with the Swiss Camerata Rhenania, which he founded. He enjoys an active career as a conductor throughout Europe and has been honoured by St Gallen with the town’s Culture Advancement Award.