Live-Concert on the radio: Distorted cheerfulness

Born in Moscow in 1945, Michail Jurowski is the son of the composer Wladimir Jurowski and grandson of the conductor David Block. His sons Vladimir and Dmitri are also internationally renowned conductors. Michail Jurowski grew up in a circle of internationally acclaimed artists of the former Soviet Union such as Ojstrach, Rostropovitch, Kogan, Gilels, and Khachaturian. Dmitri Shostakovich was a close family friend and he and Michail not only spoke often but would also play four-hand piano pieces together. Such experiences had a huge influence on the young musician and it is therefore no coincidence that today Michail Jurowski is one of the leading interpreters of Shostakovich’s music. In 2012 Michail Jurowski was awarded the third International Shostakovich Prize by the Shostakovich Gohrisch Foundation.
Michail Jurowski was educated at the Moscow Conservatoire, where he studied conducting under Leo Ginsburg and music science under Alexei Kandinsky. During his studies he assisted Gennady Rozhdestvensky at the National Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra of Moscow. While still a resident in Russia, he conducted the Music Theatre of Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko in Moscow and during his last years in the Soviet Union frequently conducted performances at the Bolshoi Theatre.
From 1978 Michail Jurowski was regular guest conductor at the Komische Oper Berlin and in 1989 he left the USSR with his family after accepting a permanent post with the Dresden Semperoper. Other titled positions have included: General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Northwest German Philharmonic Orchestra; Chief Conductor of Leipzig Opera; Chief Conductor of WDR Rundfunkorchester in Cologne; Principal Conductor of Deutsche Oper Berlin; Principal Guest Conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra; and Principal Guest Conductor of the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Sinfonia Iuventus and Tonkünstler Orchestra of Lower Austria.
As a guest conductor Michail Jurowski has led the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, Oslo Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonic, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, Det Kongelige Kapel Copenhagen, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porta Casa da Música, and São Paulo Symphony, among others.
Besides televised concerts and radio recordings in Stuttgart, Cologne, Dresden, Oslo, Norrköping, Hannover and Berlin, Maestro Jurowski has recorded with orchestras including the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. His discography includes Shostakovich’s opera “The Gamblers”, Shostakovich’s entire vocal symphonic pieces, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “Christmas Eve”, as well as orchestral pieces by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Reznicek, Meyerbeer, Lehár, Kálmán, Nicolai, Rangström, Pettersen-Berger, Grieg, Svensen, Kantcheli and many others.
In 1992 and 1996 Jurowski won the German Record Critics’ Prize and in 2001 he received a Grammy nomination for 3 CD productions of Orchestral Music by Rimsky-Korsakov with the RSB. He was most recently awarded the German Record Critics’ Prize again in 2017, for his disc of music by Shostakovich, Pӓrt and Weinberg, recorded live with the Staatskapelle Dresden at the International Shostakovich Festival in Gohrisch.

The 1st prize at the Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels in 2007 marked Anna Vinnitskaya’s international breakthrough. Her performances with top orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Boston Symphony Orchestra have been met with great enthusiasm worldwide. The breathtaking technical precision and tonal nuances of her piano playing allow her maximum creative power in her interpretations. Anna Vinnitskaya’s piano playing is characterised by unconditionality, energy and poetic depth.

Anna Vinnitskaya will perform Rachmaninov’s piano concertos in the 2025/2026 season with the Orchestre de Paris under Klaus Mäkelä, the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Eva Ollikainen, among others. With the Bern Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor Krzysztof Urbański, she will even perform all of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos on two consecutive evenings. Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand is on the programme for the celebratory concert at the Vienna Musikverein to mark the 125th anniversary of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which Anna Vinnitskaya will perform together with chief conductor Petr Popelka, followed by a tour to the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Müpa Budapest, the Essen Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus Freiburg. Anna Vinnitskaya will perform recitals this season in Bordeaux, Tokyo, Paris, Luxembourg, Madrid and Hamburg, among others. Together with Evgeni Koroliov and Ljupka Hadzi- Georgieva, she will perform Bach’s works for one to three pianos and orchestra with the Menuhin Academy Soloists in Vienna and Basel and with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra at the Cologne Philharmonie. Last season, Anna Vinnitskaya was the portrait artist of the Philharmonie Essen. In addition to a series of chamber concerts and recitals, she performed there with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under the direction of Paavo Järvi, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Elim Chan, as well as with Herbert Grönemeyer and the Bochum Symphony Orchestra.

Anna Vinnitskaya’s CD recordings for Alpha/Outhere have been honoured with numerous awards such as the Diapason d’Or and the Gramophone Editor’s Choice, including a celebrated Chopin album, a Rachmaninov album with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Krzysztof Urbański and the album ‘Piano Dances’ released in 2024. She combines her own version of Ravel’s highly virtuosic piece ‘La Valse’ and his ‘Valses nobles et sentimentales’ with the ‘Puppet Dances’ by Shostakovich and the ‘Circus Dances’ by Jörg Widmann. Her recording of Bach’s piano concertos together with Evgeni Koroliov, Ljupka Hadzi Georgieva and the Kammerakademie Potsdam is particularly close to her heart.

Anna Vinnitskaya was born in Novorossiysk, Russia. She studied with Sergei Ossipienko in Rostov and then with Evgeni Koroliov at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, where she has been a professor since 2009. Anna Vinnitskaya is increasingly a juror at renowned piano competitions, such as the Concours Reine Elisabeth in May 2025 and the ARD International Music Competition in September 2025.