Stravinsky x 6: III Pulcinella

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 performed 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.

Rudolf Buchbinder is one of the legendary artists of our time. His piano playing is an unparalleled fusion of the authority of a career spanning more than sixty years with spirit and spontaneity.

His renditions of Ludwig van Beethoven’s works are considered to be exemplary. He has performed the thirty-two piano sonatas sixty times in cycles all over the world and developed the story of their interpretation over decades. He was the first pianist to play all Beethoven sonatas at the Salzburg Festival during a festival summer. A live recording is available on DVD.

In the 2019/20 season, for the first time in its 150-year history, the Musikverein Vienna was granting a single pianist, Rudolf Buchbinder, the honour of performing all five Beethoven piano concertos with five world class orchestras and conductors in a specially edited cycle. Buchbinder’s partners in this unprecedented constellation were the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Andris Nelsons, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Riccardo Muti and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Dresden under their chief conductors Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev and Christian Thielemann.

Together with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Mariss Jansons, Rudolf Buchbinder also returned to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Philharmonie Luxembourg and the Carnegie Hall New York as part of a tour.

A première was at the core of the Beethoven Year 2020. Based on Beethoven’s monumental Diabelli Variations op. 120, Rudolf Buchbinder initiated a new cycle of Diabelli Variations written for him by eleven leading contemporary composers of different generations and backgrounds. The New Diabelli Variations were commissioned by eleven concert promoters worldwide and with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. The world first recording of the New Diabelli Variations marked the beginning of Rudolf Buchbinder’s exclusive partnership with Deutsche Grammophon. The album “The Diabelli Project” was released in March 2020.

Rudolf Buchbinder is an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Buchbinder attaches great importance to source research. His private music collection comprises 39 complete editions of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonatas as well as an extensive archive of first prints. Numerous award-winning recordings document his career.

Ina Kancheva was born in Sofia.

She has been dedicated to the arts since the age of six, and has already toured the world as a soloist with the famous children’s choir of the Bulgarian National Radio. She graduated from the High School for Theatre and Fine Arts. From the age of 19 she studied opera singing at the State Academy of Music in Sofia.
Ina Kancheva was a member of the ensemble of the Stuttgart State Opera.
She has also been invited to perform at opera houses such as Covent Garden (London), La Scala (Milan), The Royal Danish Opera (Copenhagen) and Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia (Valencia). She is a regular guest at international music festivals such as the Festival de musique Baroque d’Ambronay (France), Rossini Opera Festival (Italy) and the Prague Spring International Music Festival (Czech Republic).
Ina Kancheva works with renowned orchestras and conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Vasily Petrenko, Cornelius Meister, Enrique Mazzola, Manfred Honeck, Alberto Zedda, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Jiri Belohlavek, Julia Jones and René Jacobs.
In 2016 she released her CD “Pauline Viardot” on Toccata Classics with pianist Ludmil Angelov. As part of Deutschlandfunk Kultur’s programme “Die besondere Aufnahme” (The Special Recording), Ina Kancheva took on the role of Madame Landru in the unknown chamber opera “Madame Landru” by Roberto Hazon and started a collaboration with the Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchester Berlin and Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Praised for his romantic Italianate sound, Mexican-American tenor Galeano Salas is currently in his third season as an ensemble member of the Bayerische Staatsoper. Recent engagements at the Staatsoper include Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore alongside Pretty Yende, Fenton in Mateja Koležnik’s new production of Verdi’s Falstaff and the Italian tenor in Barrie Kosky’s premiere of Der Rosenkavalier under the direction of maestro Vladimir Jurowski.

Last season’s highlights include the Duke of Mantua with the Hungarian State Opera’s production of Rigoletto and Rodolfo in Cape Town Opera’s La bohème – a critically acclaimed co-production with Theater Basel.

Prior Staatsoper engagements include a role debut of Rinuccio in the Bayerische Staatsoper’s new production of Puccini’s Il trittico after a last minute jump-in for the Livestream performance under Maestro Petrenko. Mr. Salas has also performed many supporting roles bowing as Lord Arturo Bucklaw in Lucia di Lammermoor, Gastone in La traviata, Roderigo in Otello, Pong in Turandot and many others.

Other performed roles include the Italian Singer in R. Strauss’ Capriccio, Alfredo in La traviata, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Vaudemont in Iolanta and Tebaldo in I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

Mr. Salas most recently performed Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Opera National de Bordeaux, and Puccini’s Messa di Gloria. Past oratorio works include Haydn’s Stabat Mater, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the Mozart Requiem, and Handel’s Messiah.

Returning to the US this summer, Mr. Salas will be seen as Il Duca di Mantua in Verdi’s Rigoletto with Central City Opera. Upcoming engagements include Fenton in Barrie Kosky’s new production of Falstaff with Komische Oper Berlin, Italian Singer in the Bayerische Staatsoper’s new production of Capriccio, and Rodolfo in Robert Carsen’s production of La bohème with Vlaamse Oper.

Mr. Salas has garnered a number of awards notably winning the Grand Prix and Audience Choice Awards at the III Éva Marton International Singing Competition in Budapest. He also received the top prizes at the Stella Maris International Voice Competition, the 28ème Concours de Chant de Marmande, the VI Concurso Internacional de Canto, Alfredo Kraus, and the Top Prize of the 2016 Gerda Lissner Foundation International Voice Competition.

Mr. Salas holds degrees from the University of Houston, Yale University, and the Academy of Vocal Arts. He also completed two years as a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper Opernstudio, and was an apprentice with Santa Fe Opera, Central City Opera and Wolf Trap Opera Company in the United States.