Defeat and Triumph

Vladimir Jurowski has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the RundfunkSinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) since 2017. In 2023/2024, his concerts, tours and recordings were the highlights of the ‘RSB100’ anniversary season. His current contract in Berlin runs until 2027,
while he has also been General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich since 2021.

Vladimir Jurowski, one of the most sought-after conductors of our time, who is celebrated worldwide for his innovative musical interpretations and equally for his courageous artistic commitment, was born in Moscow in 1972 and completed the first part of his music studies at the Music College of the Moscow Conservatory. He moved to Germany with his family in 1990 and continued his studies at the music academies in Dresden and Berlin. In 1995, he made his debut at the Wexford Festival in Ireland with Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Mainacht’ and in 1996 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with ‘Nabucco’. He was then First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997-2001).

Vladimir Jurowski worked as Chief Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) for fifteen years until 2021 and has since been appointed Conductor Emeritus. In the UK, he was Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera from 2001 to 2013, leading a wide range of highly acclaimed productions. His close connection to British musical life was recognised by King Charles III in spring 2024 when he appointed Vladimir Jurowski an Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). In April 2024, Vladimir Jurowski returned to London as a guest conductor to complete the concert performance cycle of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ with ‘Götterdämmerung’ with the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall.

He was Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra ‘Yevgeny Svetlanov’ of the Russian Federation until 2021 and Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Great Britain, as well as Artistic Director of the International George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. He has also worked with the unitedberlin ensemble for many years. Vladimir Jurowski has suspended performances in Russia since February 2022. Ukrainian works are and will remain part of his repertoire, as will works by Russian composers.

Vladimir Jurowski has conducted concerts by the most important orchestras in Europe and North America, including the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonics, 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 Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig. He is a regular guest at the music festivals in London, Berlin, Dresden, Lucerne, SchleswigHolstein and Grafenegg. Although Vladimir Jurowski is invited as a guest conductor by top orchestras from all over the world, he now concentrates his activities on those geographical areas that he can easily reach with reasonable effort from an ecological point of view.

The joint CD recordings by Vladimir Jurowski and the RSB began in 2015 with Alfred Schnittke’s Symphony No. 3, followed by works by Britten, Hindemith, Strauss, Mahler and again Schnittke. Vladimir Jurowski has been honoured many times for his achievements, including numerous international record awards. In 2016, he received an honorary doctorate from the Royal Philharmonic Society from the hands of the current King Charles III. In 2020, Vladimir Jurowski’s work as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival was honoured by the Romanian President with the Order of Cultural Merit.

Marco Blaauw enjoys an international solo career and is a member of Ensemble Musikfabrik in Cologne, Germany. An important focus of his work is to further develop the instrument and its playing technique, and to initiate new repertoire.

Marco works in close collaboration with both the established and younger composers of our time. Many composers have written works especially for him, including Péter Eötvös, Georg Friedrich Haas, Rebecca Saunders, Wolfgang Rihm and John Zorn. He also worked intensely with Karlheinz Stockhausen for 17 years.

In 2015 Marco established the trumpet ensemble Monochrome Project. In direct collaboration with composer La Monte Young, he presented an eight-trumpet version of Young’s work The Second Dream of the High Tension Line Stepdown Transformer to audiences throughout Europe.

In 2016 Marco initiated ‘Global Breath’, a worldwide research project focussed on the trumpet. The first stage of this research will culminate in a presentation by international pioneers from different genres and cultural backgrounds in a Global Breath festival in 2021.

Last year Marco intensified his collaboration with painter Gerhard Richter and filmmaker Corinna Belz, producing the soundtrack to the film Moving Picture (946-3), with music for trumpet and live electronics by Rebecca Saunders. From 2020 onwards he will present this project in festivals, concert halls, museums and art galleries.

Marco Blaauw is also intensely active as a teacher.  He gives masterclasses internationally and has taught at the International Darmstadt Summer Courses, the Stockhausen Courses Kürten and the Lucerne Festival Academy.

Hannes Hölzl was born in 1987 in Bad Hofgastein, Austria (province of Salzburg). After his musical education started with playing the recorder, he switched to the tenor horn at the age of 5. At the age of 10, he additionally received trombone lessons from Goldegg music school teacher Gernot Pracher. Later he studied at the renowned university “Mozarteum” in Salzburg with Prof. Dany Bonvin.

In the years 1998 to 2000 Hannes Hölzl passed the performance badges of the Austrian Brass Band Association in bronze, silver and gold, all with “excellent success”. Furthermore, he was successful in numerous international competitions: starting as winner of the competition “Prima la musica”, receiving the 2nd prize in Cordoba, Argentina as well as the 1st prize at the “European Solo Champion” in Montreux, the 4th prize at the International Brass Competition in Markneukirchen-Germany, the 4th prize at the “Città” competition in Italy, the 2nd Prize at the “Prague Spring”(1st Prize was not awarded), where he also received the “Gustav Mahler Prize” as the youngest finalist of the whole competition and the “Prize of the City of Prague” as the most successful finalist of the trombone competition. He was also awarded the 2nd prize at the International Trombone Competition in Budapest, also he received the Promotional Prize of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

Hannes Hölzl is a member of various brass ensembles and performs as a soloist with different brass and symphony orchestras at home and abroad, including China, America, Tunisia, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Germany….

At the age of 18 Hannes Hölzl began his career in the great symphony orchestra with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. In the same year he won a 2 year internship with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. During this time Hannes Hölzl gained his first permanent position at the Mainfrankentheater Würzburg, which he took up at the age of 21 as solo trombonist. Since 2012 he is now solo trombonist of the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin.

Jörg Lehmann was born in Eisenhüttenstadt in 1962 and studied bass trombone with Hans Behrends at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin from 1979-1983.

After working as a substitute at the Komische Oper Berlin, he won the audition there and was bass trombonist from 1983-1986 under the then chief conductor, Prof Rolf Reuter.
In the same year he switched to the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, under Prof. Heinz Rögner, later Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and then for a long time under Marek Janowski.

Jörg Lehmann has played with various orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Staatsoper Berlin, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under renowned conductors such as Giuseppe Sinopoli, Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons and Christian Thielemann.

In addition to his orchestral activities, Lehmann is an enthusiastic chamber musician.
He was a founding member of the Berlin Trombone Quintet and a permanent member of the Ludwig Güttler Brass Ensemble.
Numerous guest appearances have taken him to other European countries, Asia, North and South America, the Middle East and Africa.
Jörg Lehmann now devotes himself to concert literature for trombone and organ.