Biography

From 1978 to 2000, Michael Haas (born in 1954) has more than 20 years experience as an executive and recording producer for both Universal Music Group's Decca/London and the Sony Classical labels. Since 2000, he has continued to produce recordings released by many other major labels such as Deutsche Grammophon , EMI and most recently, Opera Rara. While still at Decca, he was producer for Sir Georg Solti for over 10 years winning several Grammies, before leaving for Sony to work with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic as well as working in 1994 as Vice President of A&R in New York.

Between the two labels, he produced prize-winning recordings with almost all the major classical artists of the day. These include such important figures as Christoph von Dohnanyi, Bernard Haitink, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Chailly, Mstislav Rostropovich, Hans Werner Henze, Valery Gergiev and Sir Simon Rattle. Instrumentalists include Radu Lupu, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Alicia de Larrocha, Andras Schiff, Lynn Harrell, Pinchas Zukerman and Maxim Vengerov.

During his years at Decca and Sony, he worked with most major singers: Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Cecilia Bartoli, Joan Sutherland, Renée Fleming, Anna Tomowa- Sintow, Hildegard Behrens, Monserat Caballé, Mirella Freni, Christa Ludwig, Lucia Popp, Jessye Norman, Matthias Goerne, Sumi Jo, Bryn Terfel, Ian Bostridge, Barbara Bonney, Samuel Ramey, Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna to name just a few of the best known.

His most regarded work has been in the rediscovery of music lost during the Nazi years in Europe. The recording series on Decca "Entartete Musik" is seen as a groundbreaking recovery of works thought lost, forgotten or destroyed. These include recordings of works composed in concentration camps as well as works by former major composers such as Berthold Goldschmidt who, once banned, never regained their earlier prominence. The series has won most major awards and created an opportunity for launching such artists as Ute Lemper, Matthias Goerne and Jane Eaglen. Since 2002, Haas has continued his recovery work of composers lost during the years of the Third Reich with the exhibition series "Musik des Aufbruchs" or "Music in Transition" at the Jewish Museum in Vienna. He has curated numerous music exhibitions that included dedicated exhibitions on the composers Hans Gál, Egon Wellesz, Erich Zeisl, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hanns Eisler. An exhibition on Ernst Toch is planned to open at the Jewish Museum in 2010. In addition, he has advised on large exhibitions at the Jewish museum including Quasi una Fantasie, Die Juden und die Musikstadt Wien, (Vienna, Jews and City of Music shown at the Yeshiva University Museum in New York, 2004); Mahleriana - Vom Werden einer Ikone, (Mahleriana - the making of an Icon) and the Jewish Museums exhibition on Lorenzo da Ponte for 2005's celebratory Mozart year. The exhibitions have been well reviewed internationally with the Korngold exhibition clocking well over 40,000 visitors during its run of 6 months. Haas received the Theodor Koerner Prize from the City of Vienna for ‘cultural excellence' for his exhibition on Hanns Eisler.

Haas has also been awarded 2 Grammy Latinos for his work with Plácido Domingo in recording Spanish grand opera from the 19th century: La Dolores by Thomas Breton won the Grammy Latino in September 2000 with Isaac Albéniz's Merlin winning the same award in 2001.

Press coverage has been extensive on Mr. Haas' work with "Entartete Musik" as well as on his more established activities such as his multi-award winning recordings of Rusalka ,Thais and Daphne with Renée Fleming. Together, these earned him an entry in London's only daily newspaper: In December 1999, the London Evening Standard, named Mr. Haas in their "Millennium List of London's Movers and Shakers" as one of classical music's most influential entrepreneurs.

Now independent, Mr. Haas spends his time working on a limited number of selected recordings as well as other projects in addition to lectures, writing, organising festivals, concerts and conferences. He has twice headed special seminars on classical recording production at the Banff Centre in Alberta Canada. But it is in matters regarding music lost during the Holocaust that Haas remains most active: He is director of the Jewish Music Institute's "International Committee of Suppressed Music", which is based at SOAS College, University of London. He is also Associate Director of the Austrian organisation ExilArte at the Music University of Vienna. He has organised and chaired many international conferences as well as being an active supporter of Berlin's organisation "Musica Reanimata" ; Paris's "Le Voix etouffée" and Los Angeles' "Orel Foundation" . He was director of the "Musica Prohibita" festival of "Entartete Musik" in Barcelona in 2000 and principal advisor for Dutch Radio's "Saturday Concerts" series at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in their 2004/5 season which involved the planning of 44 concerts focused on Music that was lost during the years of the Third Reich. He has been invited to speak at numerous events, and universities such as Columbia University's Jewish Theological Institute; Hamburg's Music University, where he has held seminars; The Music University of Vienna; University of Virginia and the Lincoln Centre Festival. In 2009, Haas was asked to participate in a Festival of music banned by the Third Reich in Taipei, Taiwan. Speaking engagements for 2010 include The University in Johannesburg and UCLA in Los Angeles. In 1997 and 1998, he was consultant during the earliest planning stages of The Milken Family Foundation's recording series, "The Jewish Experience in American Music", now released on Naxos. In 2002, he was presented with the coveted Music Award by the London Jewish Cultural Centre, an award he received alongside Roman Polanski for his film The Pianist, and Steven Spielberg for lifetime achievement. In 2009, The City of Vienna presented him with its "Theodor Koerner Preis" for his exhibition at Vienna's Jewish Museum on the composer Hanns Eisler.

From 2002, Haas received the David Uri Fellowship for five consecutive years in recognition of his work and research in music banned by the Third Reich. In addition, he now works as Music Curator of the Jewish Museum of Vienna and has a contract for a book on Music banned by the Third Reich to be published by Yale University Press.

Bilingual in German and English, Mr. Haas was born to American parents, but raised in Austria where he received most of his general education and all of his musical training. He was trained in performance as a pianist at the Vienna Conservatory, and subsequently, at the Music Academy. In addition to German and English, Mr. Haas speaks Italian, Spanish and French.

Though the series "Entartete Musik" and his highly regarded opera and vocal recordings, brought recognition to Michael Haas, as a recording producer he is equally at home with early music and the avant-garde. At the beginning of his career, he was responsible for Decca's signing of Andras Schiff but has also signed to Decca such diverse vocal artists as Matthias Goerne and Ute Lemper. He has also participated on the first recordings of Angela Gheorghiu and Cecilia Bartoli as well as producing Ricardo Chailly's first recording with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Solti's Farewell Concert's with the Chicago Symphony: Verdi's Otello with Luciano Pavarotti and Kiri Te Kanawa.

Since 2007, Haas has been one of the principal recording producer for the label ‘Opera Rara' with releases including a 2 CD "Offenbach Gala" and complete recordings of Bellini's La Straniera; Mercadante's Virginia; Pacini's Alessandro nell' Indie; Thomas' La cour de Célimène; Offenbach's Vert-Vert; Rossini's Ermione and Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Parisina.