Musical monuments

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.

Performing music from baroque to new commissions on both modern and period instruments, Alina Ibragimova has established a reputation as one of the most accomplished and intriguing violinists of her generation. This is illustrated by her prominent presence at the BBC Proms since 2015: aside from concerto performances from the standard repertoire, her Proms appearances have included a concert with a baroque ensemble and two late-night Royal Albert Hall recitals featuring the complete Bach partitas and sonatas, for which The Guardian commented “The immediacy and honesty of Ibragimova’s playing has the curious ability to collapse any sense of distance between performer and listener”. In the 2018 Proms, Alina will give the World Premiere of the Rolf Wallin Violin Concerto with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.

Over the next season, Alina will have a strong focus on Shostakovich Concerto’s No. 1 and No.2, which she will record with Vladimir Jurowski for Hyperion Records. She looks forward to debut engagements with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Gardiner), the Toronto Symphony and Minnesota Orchestras, and will return to the London Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Haitink), Swedish Radio Symphony (Harding), Seattle Symphony (Ludovic Morlot) and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Jurowski). Highlights among recent concerto engagements include debuts with the Boston Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and returns with the London Philharmonic and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Alina has also toured extensively in Australia with the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Tasmania symphony orchestras as well as with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Her long-standing duo partnership with pianist Cédric Tiberghien has featured highly successful cycles of the Beethoven and Mozart violin sonatas at the Wigmore Hall. Highlights among recent engagements included a three-week tour of Japan and Korea, extensive touring of North America and a Berlin debut recital at the Pierre Boulez Saal. In 18/19, the duo looks forward to debuts at the Konzerthaus Vienna and a return tour of Japan and Korea.
Alina is a founding member of the Chiaroscuro Quartet. Together they have toured extensively since 2005 and have become one of the most sought-after period ensembles.

Alina’s discography on Hyperion Records includes 15 albums ranging from Bach to Szymanowski and Ysaye. Her latest release featuring the complete Mozart Violin Sonata cycle with Cedric Tiberghien was referred to as “…A set that will become the modern reference recording…” by Gramaphone Magazine. The next release with Franck and Vierne’s Violin Sontatas is expected in Autumn 2018.

Born in Russia in 1985 Alina studied at the Moscow Gnesin School before moving with her family to the UK in 1995 where she studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal College of Music. She was also a member of the Kronberg Academy Masters programme. Alina’s teachers have included Natasha Boyarsky, Gordan Nikolitch and Christian Tetzlaff. Alina has been the recipient of awards including the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2010, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award 2008, the Classical BRIT Young Performer of the Year Award 2009 and was a member of the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme 2005-7. She was made an MBE in the 2016 New Year Honours List.

Alina records for Hyperion Records and performs on a c.1775 Anselmo Bellosio violin kindly provided by Georg von Opel.