He Rocked Us: 25 years after he died, Queen’s Freddie Mercury is still the talk of the crown

For 18 years, Bob Bernhardt conducted the Chattanooga Symphony & Opera, leading the orchestra through the dangerous maze of Puccini’s opera “Turandot,” across the seven movements of Holst’s “The Planets,” between the dark, angry and lyrical emotions of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor.

Oh yeah, and also wading into Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Bernhardt, who was music director and conductor of the CSO from 1992 until 2011, has performed concerts focused on the music of Queen three times, once with the CSO and twice with orchestras in other cities. And, while replicating the highly technical instrumentation and multi-layered production of the band’s music was daunting enough, there was one thing he has never been able to do – find someone who sings like Freddie Mercury.

“He was fearless; he was vocally fearless,” Bernhardt says. “That voice is alone in its generation for what it was able to do.”