Arnold Östman

Arnold Otto Natanael Östman[1] (24 December 1939 – 15 August 2023) was a Swedish conductor and music director.

[5] Östman was made artistic director of the Drottningholm Palace Theatre in 1980 and remained in that role until 1992.

[3] He gained an international reputation as a champion of the period performance movement in classical music,[6][7][8] a movement that insists on the performance of repertoire from c. 1600 to 1820 (i.e., baroque, classical, and early romantic) using instruments (or modern replicas), techniques, and stylistic sensibilities from the appropriate period.

[9] In particular, Drottningholm's productions of Mozart operas with period instruments caused a considerable stir in the early days of the historical-performance movement.

[13] Outside Sweden, Östman conducted a wide range of repertoire at the opera houses of Covent Garden, Vienna, Parma, Trieste, Cologne, Bonn, Toulouse, Nice, Wexford, Madrid, Washington, Lausanne, Paris (Garnier and Bastille) and at the Schwetzingen and Vienna Festivals, among others.