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In our continuing series of one-to-one interviews with key music figures, Tom Service speaks to the great American-born Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt, who at the age of 88 is an acclaimed interpreter of the Romantic Austro-German orchestral tradition. He has deep affinity with the music of Bruckner, Mahler and Beethoven. 

Blomstedt has built long-term relationships with orchestras all over the world, from the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra to the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra - but above all with the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. He explains how he made an unlikely transition from violinist to conductor, and how it is his love of the music - not of the power of the podium - that keeps him motivated. Speaking to Music Matters as he prepares to appear at the Â鶹Éç Proms this summer, Blomstedt also talks about his mission to show that classical music is a meaningful alternative in a contemporary world dominated by popular culture.