Vladimir Jurowski & Frank Peter Zimmermann

Vladimir Jurowski has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since 2017. He has meanwhile extended his contract until 2027. In parallel, he has been General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich since 2021.

After receiving training at the Moscow Conservatory The conductor, pianist and musicologist Vladimir Jurowski emigrated to Germany in 1990. Here he continued his studies at the music conservatories in Dresden and Berlin.  In 1995 he made his international debut at the British Wexford Festival with Rimski-Korsakov’s Mainacht and in the same year at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Nabucco. Subsequently he was, among other things, First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997- 2001) and Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001-2013). In 2003 Vladimir Jurowski was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and has been its Principal Conductor since 2007 until 2021. He was also Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra Yevgeny Svetlanov of the Russian Federation until 2021, Artistic Director of the International George Enescu Festival in Bucharest and Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Great Britain. He works regularly with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the ensemble unitedberlin.

Vladimir Jurowski has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and North America, including the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, 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 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

He is a recurring guest conductor in in London, Berlin, Dresden, Luzern, Schleswig-Holstein und Grafenegg as well as at the Rostopowitsch-Festival. Although Vladimir Jurowski is invited as a guest conductor by top orchestras from all over the world, in future he would like to concentrate his activities on that geographical area which is acceptable to him from an ecological point of view.

In 2022/2023 he will perform with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in concerts in various cities in Germany, Italy and Antwerp in the Netherlands. The joint CD recordings of Vladimir Jurowski and the RSB began in 2015 with Alfred Schnittke’s Symphony No. 3, followed by works by Britten, Hindemith, Strauss, Mahler and soon again Schnittke.

Vladimir Jurowski has been the recipient of numerous awards for his achievements, including various international record prizes. In 2016, he was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Prince Charles at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2018, the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards named him Conductor of the Year. In summer 2020, Jurowski was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit by the Romanian President in recognition of his work as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival.

Frank Peter Zimmermann is widely regarded as one of the foremost violinists of his generation. Praised for
his selfless musicality, his brilliance and keen intelligence he has been performing with all major orchestras
in the world for well over three decades, collaborating on these occasions with the world’s most renowned
conductors. His many concert engagements take him to all important concert venues and international
music festivals in Europe, the United States, Asia, South America and Australia.

Highlights during the 2021/22 season include a residency with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and
Jonathan Nott, as well as engagements with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Klaus
Mäkelä, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester and Manfred Honeck, the Bamberger Symphoniker and Jakub
Hrůša and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Staatskapelle Berlin, both with Daniele Gatti.

With pianist Martin Helmchen he is performing the complete or partial Beethoven sonata cycle in various
major cities in Europe. BIS Records has meanwhile released the complete cycle on 3 CDs.

In 2010 he formed the Trio Zimmermann with viola player Antoine Tamestit and cellist Christian Poltéra; the
trio has been performing in all major music centres and festivals in Europe. BIS Records released awardwinning
CD recordings of works for string trio by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Schoenberg and
Hindemith.

Over the years Frank Peter Zimmermann has built up an impressive discography for EMI Classics, Sony
Classical, BIS Records, hänssler CLASSIC, Ondine, Decca, Teldec Classics and ECM Records. He has
recorded virtually all major concerto repertoire, ranging from Bach to Ligeti, as well as recital repertoire.
Many of these highly acclaimed recordings have received prestigious awards and prizes worldwide. Most
recent releases include the two violin concertos of Martinů with the Bamberger Symphoniker and Jakub
Hrůša, coupled with the solo sonata of Bartók (BIS); the two violin concertos of Shostakovich with the NDR
Elbphilharmonie Orchester and Alan Gilbert (BIS; nominated for a Grammy Award); and the violin
concertos of J.S. Bach with the Berliner Barock Solisten (hänssler CLASSIC). In September 2021 the Berliner
Philharmoniker released a special CD on its own label with Mr. Zimmermann’s performances of the Bartók,
Beethoven and Berg concertos under conductors Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding and Kirill Petrenko resp.

He received a number of special prizes and honours, among which the “Premio del Accademia Musicale
Chigiana, Siena” (1990), the “Rheinischer Kulturpreis” (1994), the “Musikpreis” of the city of Duisburg
(2002), the “Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (2008) and the “Paul-
Hindemith-Preis der Stadt Hanau” (2010).
Mr. Zimmermann has given four world premieres: Magnus Lindberg’s violin concerto no. 2 with the London
Philharmonic Orchestra and Jaap van Zweden (2015) with further performances with the Berliner
Philharmoniker and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, both under Daniel Harding and with the New
York Philharmonic and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, both under Alan Gilbert. He also
premiered the violin concerto “en sourdine” by Matthias Pintscher with the Berliner Philharmoniker and
Peter Eötvös (2003), the violin concerto “The Lost Art of Letter Writing” by Brett Dean, who received the
2009 Grawemeyer Award for this composition, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by the
composer (2007) and the violin concerto no. 3 “Juggler in Paradise” by Augusta Read Thomas with the
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Andrey Boreyko (2009).

Born in 1965 in Duisburg, Germany, Mr. Zimmermann started playing the violin when he was 5 years old,
giving his first concert with orchestra at the age of 10. He studied with Valery Gradov, Saschko Gawriloff and
Herman Krebbers.

Mr. Zimmermann plays on the 1711 Antonio Stradivari violin “Lady Inchiquin”, which is kindly provided by
the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, “Kunst im Landesbesitz”.