A look at the dark side of the moon

Vladimir Jurowski has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since 2017. He has meanwhile extended his contract until 2027. In parallel, he has been General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich since 2021.

After receiving training at the Moscow Conservatory The conductor, pianist and musicologist Vladimir Jurowski emigrated to Germany in 1990. Here he continued his studies at the music conservatories in Dresden and Berlin.  In 1995 he made his international debut at the British Wexford Festival with Rimski-Korsakov’s Mainacht and in the same year at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Nabucco. Subsequently he was, among other things, First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997- 2001) and Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001-2013). In 2003 Vladimir Jurowski was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and has been its Principal Conductor since 2007 until 2021. He was also Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra Yevgeny Svetlanov of the Russian Federation until 2021, Artistic Director of the International George Enescu Festival in Bucharest and Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Great Britain. He works regularly with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the ensemble unitedberlin.

Vladimir Jurowski has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and North America, including the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

He is a recurring guest conductor in in London, Berlin, Dresden, Luzern, Schleswig-Holstein und Grafenegg as well as at the Rostopowitsch-Festival. Although Vladimir Jurowski is invited as a guest conductor by top orchestras from all over the world, in future he would like to concentrate his activities on that geographical area which is acceptable to him from an ecological point of view.

In 2022/2023 he will perform with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in concerts in various cities in Germany, Italy and Antwerp in the Netherlands. The joint CD recordings of Vladimir Jurowski and the RSB began in 2015 with Alfred Schnittke’s Symphony No. 3, followed by works by Britten, Hindemith, Strauss, Mahler and soon again Schnittke.

Vladimir Jurowski has been the recipient of numerous awards for his achievements, including various international record prizes. In 2016, he was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Prince Charles at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2018, the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards named him Conductor of the Year. In summer 2020, Jurowski was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit by the Romanian President in recognition of his work as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival.

The young mezzo-soprano Alice Lackner is internationally acclaimed as an opera, concert and song performer.
Born in Munich, Alice Lackner studied with Prof. Kunz-Eisenlohr at the Musikhochschule Köln/Aachen until 2015 and worked with teachers such as Brigitte Fassbaender, Gerd Uecker, Robert Holl, Ulrich Eisenlohr and Sami Kustaloglu. She received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes and won prizes at the “Podium junger Gesangssolisten” competition in Essen (2015), the “cantatebach!” competition in Greifswald (2017) as well as the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg (2019).
Alice Lackner worked as a soloist with orchestras such as the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Russian National Orchestra of Kaliningrad, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt (Oder), or the L’Orfeo Barockorchester.
In June 2019, she gave her debut in the Berlin Philharmonie with Lili Boulanger’s “Psalm 130: Du fond de l’abîme” together with the Collegium Musicum Berlin. In September 2019, she performed in Richard Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten” at the Musikfest Berlin and the George-Enescu-Festival Bukarest.
In January 2020, Alice Lackner was the soloist in Mahler’s 4th symphony at the Konzerthaus Berlin, accompanied by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski.
As an opera singer, Alice Lackner recently performed in Bad Lauchstädt Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” with the lautten compagney Berlin. In 2019, she sang the role of Nancy in Friedrich von Flotow’s “Martha” as a laureate of the Rheinsberg Kammeroper Festival. Furthermore, while still in her studies, she performed various soloist parts at the Theater Aachen, in operas such as Rusalka (Antonín Dvořák), Les Brigands (Jacques Offenbach) or Jenufa (Leoš Janáček).
Her core repertoire on the concert stage includes works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Recent performances have also included lesser known concert repertoire such as Requiems by Maurice Duruflé or Franz von Suppè, the “Membra Jesu Nostri” (Dietrich Buxtehude) or “Der Sieg des Glaubens” (Ferdinand Ries).
With respect to the art song, Alice Lackner works on a regular basis with the pianist Imke Lichtwark in Berlin. Next to their standard repertoire of German romantic songs, they set their focus on foreign-language repertoire (such as Slavic or French) as well as contemporary music.
Alice Lackner is a frequent guest in various vocal ensembles such as the RIAS Kammerchor, the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the SWR Vokalensemble, the Berliner Rundfunkchor, the NDR Chor and the MDR Chor.
Futhermore, she recently founded the Berlin-based trio meZZZovoce, with which she explores repertoire for three mezzo-soprano voices from the Renaissance up to contemporary music.
Alice Lackner holds a Master’s degree in sociology and works as a research assistant at the Berlin-based ZOiS (Centre for East European and International Studies) .
In 2019, she realized a project about Ukraine together with the London-based photographer Mark Neville. In this project, the artists shed light on the current political situation in Ukraine from an artistic point of view.