Ernst Mehlich

Who was Ernst Mehlich?

Ernst Mehlich was a German-Brazilian orchestra conductor and composer. In Brazil he was known as Ernesto Mehlich.

Mehlich was born in Berlin, Germany. In January 1927 he became Director of the Baden-Baden City Symphony Orchestra, first as Head of the City Musical Department, and from December on as General Music Director. In Baden-Baden he inaugurated the Deutsche Kammermusikfestival in July 1927, in which Paul Hindemith, Carl Friedberg, and Igor Stravinsky participated. Besides, the Mahagonny-Songspiel, commissioned for the festival, premiered on July 17. The Kammermusikfestival was discontinued after the scandal caused by the premiere of Hindemith and Brecht's Lehrstück in 1929. In January 1930 he went on a tour through the United States where he conducted performances of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Der fliegende Holländer at the Philadelphia Metropolitan Opera House. In 1933 he was dismissed from his post by the new Nazi government because of his Jewish ancestry. He emigrated to Brazil where he became the first Musical Director of the São Paulo City Symphony Orchestra. On March 28, 1936, he conducted the inaugurational concert.