RSB on Tour: Saragoza

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.

Jan Lisiecki’s interpretations and technique testify to a maturity far ahead of his age. At 27, the Canadian plays over a hundred concerts a year on the world’s great stages and has built close relationships with conductors such as Sir Antonio Pappano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Daniel Harding, Manfred Honeck and Claudio Abbado (†).
In 2021/2022, Lisiecki presented his new recital programme of Chopin’s Nocturnes and Etudes in over 30 cities around the globe. Recent re-invitations have brought him back together with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for concerts at Carnegie Hall and Elbphilharmonie. Lisiecki recently performed a Beethoven song cycle with baritone Matthias Goerne, including at the Salzburg Festival. He has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of this summer included four complete Beethoven piano concerto cycles with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which he conducted from the piano, both Chopin concertos with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and renewed concerts at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London, as well as a sold-out 5-concert residency at the Rheingau Music Festival.
In the 22/23 season he will be ProArte’s resident artist with several concerts each at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Philharmonie Köln. Jan Lisiecki will be on tour with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, again with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He will perform the Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s season-opening gala and in spring 2023 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan with both a recital and the
Filarmonica della Scala.

At the age of 15, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The label marked its celebration of Beethoven Year by releasing a live recording of all five Beethoven concertos from the Konzerthaus Berlin, with Jan Lisiecki conducting the Academy of St Martin in the Fields from the piano. The cycle of Beethoven songs recorded with Matthias Goerne, which followed shortly afterwards, was awarded the Diapason d’Or. Lisiecki’s eighth recording for the traditional label, a double album of Frédéric Chopin’s collected Nocturnes, to which he also devotes himself in his current solo programme, was released in vinyl format in August 2021 and February 2022 and immediately reached the top of the classical charts in North America and Europe. Most recently, his previous solo programme Night Music, featuring works by Mozart, Ravel, Schumann and Paderewski, was released as a digital album. Lisiecki’s recordings have received the ECHO Klassik and the JUNO Award, among others.

At the age of 18, Jan Lisiecki was chosen by Gramophone Magazine as the youngest winner of the Young Artist Award.
Award and received the Leonard Bernstein Award. In 2012, UNICEF appointed him as the
Ambassador for Canada.