Emerging and Fading

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.

The ensemble unitedberlin was founded in 1989 with the symbolic purpose of reconnecting classical musicians in a city long divided by the Cold War. Since its inception the ensemble has been transcending barriers both musically and geographically. Performances at festivals in Albania, Brazil, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Russia, China, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland accompany the ensembles activities in Berlin. Recent performances international engagements include concerts at the ‘Milano Musica’ and „Slowind’ in Ljubljana.

Unitedberlin’s focus lies in presenting a wide range of contemporary music in the context of modernist repertoire ranging from Schönberg and Webern to Nono and Cage. Several concert programs were created in close collaboration with composers of our time such as Mauricio Kagel, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Mark Anthony Turnage, Christian Wolff, Toshio Hosokawa and Vinko Globokar, yielding a variety of formats such as lecture concerts, instrumental workshops or documentary projects.

A characteristic feature of unitedberlin is its openness to interdisciplinary approaches. A series of five concerts took to exploring sonic intersections with the visual arts. The ongoing «Transfigurations» series looks at unusual connections between video art and musical composition. Music theatre projects have included performances of Schönberg’s «Die Glückliche Hand», Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s satire «Simplicius Simplicissimus», Christian Josts «Death Knocks» based on a film by Woody Allen, or Vinko Globokar’s musical theater piece «The Emigrants».

Current projects include a four part series in Berlin’s eminent Konzerthaus commemorating the 20 anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with works by composers from East and West Germany as well as a program with new works written for an ensemble of Asian and Western instruments and a portrait concert of works by Vinko Globokar on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

Unitedberlin has released several CD on the Wergo, Col legno and Ars musici labels that have received international acclaim. Paul Griffiths wrote of the ensemble’s disc with works by Luigi Nono (WERGO 6631-2): “There have been a lot of Nono releases since the composer’s death in 1990. This is one of the best.” (New York Times, Dec. 29, 1998)

Anisha Bondy, born in 1981 in London, lives with her husband and three children in Berlin. She studied musical theatre direction at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she graduated in 2005 with a production of “Die Kluge” by Carl Orff. Her path led her via the opera houses in Basel and Cologne to the Komische Oper Berlin. Since 2007 she has assisted many directors including Katharina Thalbach, Michael Thalheimer, Claus Guth, Andreas Homoki, Hans Neuenfels, Peter Konwitschny, Sebastian Baumgarten, Benedict Andrews and Barrie Kosky.
From 2009 – 2011 she held a scholarship in the directing category at the Deutsche Bank Foundation’s Akademie Musiktheater Heute. Since then, as an alumna, she has been conducting workshops at the Komische Oper Berlin for young people from immigrant backgrounds to introduce them to the world of opera.
In 2010 she directed the world premiere of “The Snow Queen” by Pierangelo Valtinoni at the Komische Oper Berlin. In the summers of 2011 – 2014 she was assistant director on Sebastian Baumgarten’s production of “Tannhäuser” at the Bayreuth Festival.
Since 2015, she has intensified her work in the outreach field as scenic director of “Selam Opera!”, the intercultural project of the Komische Oper Berlin. Together with her team, she developed formats such as the ‘Pop-Up Opera’ or the opera bus ‘Operndolmus’. In 2016, the team retraced the migrant worker route from Berlin to Istanbul with a 45-minute musical theatre review that was performed at various places along the journey. “Selam Opera!” was awarded the BKM Prize for Cultural Education.
Anisha Bondy worked together with conductor Vladimir Jurowski on the projects “Claude Vivier – 70/35 – a sacred act” (2018) and “Les espaces acoustiques” (2019) by Gérard Grisey at the Konzerthaus Berlin.