Vladimir Jurowski & Nils Mönkemeyer

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.

Artistic brilliance and innovative programming are the trademarks that have earned Nils Mönkemeyer a reputation as one of the
world’s most successful violists, dramatically raising the profile of his instrument.

Under his exclusive contract with Sony Classical, Mönkemeyer has released numerous CDs over the past years, all of which have
won critical acclaim and prestigious awards. His programmes run the gamut from rediscoveries and first recordings of original
18th-century viola literature, to contemporary repertoire and arrangements of his own.

Nils Mönkemeyer works together with conductors such as Andrej Boreyko, Sylvain Cambreling, Elias Grandy, Christopher
Hogwood, Cornelius Meister, Mark Minkowski, Kent Nagano, Michael Sanderling, Clemens Schuldt, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Markus
Stenz, Mario Venzago and Simone Young, performing as a soloist with ensembles including Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Helsinki
Philharmonic Orchestra, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berne Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche
Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Hamburg Philharmonic, Frankfurter
Opern- und Museumsorchester, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Weimar Staatskapelle,
Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra and Berliner Barock Solisten.

In the season 2021/22 he can be heard performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen and Kristiina Poska on a tour through BeNeLux and Estland, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and in Vienna, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, at the Schubertiade, Niedersächsische Musiktage, Heidelberger Frühling and Mozartfest Würzburg. Further highlights of the season are concerts with Sabine Meyer and William Youn and with the Julia Fischer Quartett.

Furthermore, he is pursuing a heartfelt wish as a musician to build bridges with music by making it accessible to the disadvantaged.
To this end, Nils Mönkemeyer founded the chamber music festival “Klassik für Alle” in 2016, in collaboration with the charity
Caritas Bonn.

Mönkemeyer has been a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich since 2011 – the same institution at
which he himself studied with Hariolf Schlichtig.

Nils Mönkemeyer plays a viola made by Philipp Augustin.