Vladimir Jurowski

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.

Christian Tetzlaff has been one of the most sought-after violinists and most exciting musicians on the classical music scene for many years. “The greatest performance of the work I’ve ever heard,” wrote Tim Ashley (The Guardian, May 2015) of his interpretation of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Daniel Harding.

Concerts with Christian Tetzlaff often become an existential experience for the interpreter and audience alike, old familiar works suddenly appear in a completely new light. In addition, he frequently turns his attention to forgotten masterpieces such as Joseph Joachim’s Violin Concerto, which he successfully championed, or the Violin Concerto No. 22 by Giovanni Battista Viotti, a contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven. To broaden his repertoire, he also commits himself to substantial new works, such as Jörg Widmann’s Violin Concerto, which he premiered in 2013. He has an unusually extensive repertoire and performs approximately 100 concerts every year.

Katharine Mehrling lives in Berlin, where she has won the Golden Curtain audience award six times as the city’s most popular actress, for performances in productions including Arizona Lady, Ball at the Savoy and My Fair Lady at the Komische Oper Berlin. She was also awarded the Berlin Bear (BZ Culture Prize) in 2016.

She studied acting and musical theatre at the London Studio Centre and at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in New York. She made her stage debut in London’s West End, at the Old Vic Theatre as Chrissy in Hair, going on to take the title and leading roles in Irma la Douce, Piaf, Cabaret, End of the rainbow (Judy Garland), Kiss me Kate, The Threepenny Opera, Tell me on a Sunday, Next to normal, Funny Girl and Evita at Vienna’s Ronacher Theater. She created the role of Tippi Hedren in the musical The Birds of Alfred Hitchcock by William Ward Murta, written especially for her.

She also appeared in the Hollywood movie Valkyrie.

Her love of jazz and French chanson is reflected in her live performances and on several CDs, including Hommages, Bonsoir Katharine, Piaf au Bar, Mehrling au Bar, Vive la vie, In love with Judy and Am Rande der Nacht (At the edge of the night), which she wrote with jazz legend Rolf Kühn.

Since their collaboration on Paul Abraham’s jazz operetta Ball at the Savoy, Katharine Mehrling and Barrie Kosky have enjoyed a special artistic friendship. Their collaboration Lonely House, premiered in December 2019 at the Komische Oper Berlin, focuses on Kurt Weill’s exile in Paris and New York. At the Edinburgh Internationalen Festival 2021 Mehrling & Kosky performed two concerts with their Kurt Weill evening LONELY HOUSE, which received 5-star reviews in the British press.

In 2022 Katharine Mehrling represents the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau as Artist in Residence.