RSB on Tour: Varna

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 2029,
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.

One of the world’s leading violinists, Julia Fischer is a versatile musician celebrated for her extraordinary abilities as a concert pianist, chamber musician and teacher. The first prize at the international Yehudi Menuhin Competition in 1995 was one of the milestones in her early career and she has since performed with top orchestras worldwide, including the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and collaborated with renowned conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Alan Gilbert, Iván Fischer, Jakub Hrůša, Vladimir Jurowski, Juanjo Mena, Riccardo Muti, Vasily Petrenko, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Christian Thielemann, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Franz Welser-Möst. Notable past collaborations include the late Yakov Kreizberg, Lorin Maazel, Giuseppe Sinopoli, and Yuri Temirkanov. Julia also enjoys directing from the violin and has maintained a close artistic relationship with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Julia Fischer returns to the stage in spring 2026 after a teaching sabbatical, beginning with a European tour with the Julia Fischer Quartet. The tour will be followed by concerts with Sinfonieorchester Basel under Markus Poschner, Bamberger Symphoniker with Manfred Honeck, and the Berliner Philharmoniker with Jakub Hrůša. During the summer, Julia will appear at Kissinger Sommer twice: in recital with Yulianna Avdeeva, and with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer.

Julia Fischer’s musical accomplishments extend far beyond her career as a violin virtuoso. She is an enthusiastic chamber musician on both violin and piano, a dedicated teacher, an orchestra founder and an artistic director. In 2010 she founded the Julia Fischer Quartet with violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, violist Nils Mönkemeyer and cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger, and continues to tour extensively in this formation. Her concert at the Alte Oper Frankfurt in 2010 marked her debut as a pianist: she performed the Grieg Piano Concerto in the second half, having played Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in the first half.

Teaching is an integral part of her musical life, as she continues to nurture and guide young talent at Munich’s University of Music, and often performs alongside her students. In 2019, Julia Fischer founded a children’s orchestra, the Kindersinfoniker, in her hometown of Munich. In 2024, she was named Artistic Director of the Boswil Summer Festival in Switzerland alongside her fellow quartet musician, cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger.

Over the course of her artistic career, Julia Fischer has released numerous critically acclaimed and award-winning CD and DVD recordings, first on the Pentatone label and later under Decca. In 2017, she launched her own music platform, the JF CLUB, which offers exclusive audio and video content, previews of her new recordings as well as personal insight into her music and her work for her fans and subscribers. Exclusive releases include César Franck’s Sonata in A major, Karol Szymanowski’s Sonata in D minor and Beethoven’s String Trio in C minor. One of her recent releases includes a limited vinyl recording of Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonatas as an exclusive JF CLUB edition in collaboration with Hänssler Classic.

Born in Munich to German-Slovakian parents, Julia received her first violin lessons at the age of three, and her first piano lessons shortly after from her mother Viera Fischer. At the age of nine she started studying with the renowned violin professor Ana Chumachenco, later becoming her successor at the University of Munich. Julia Fischer holds numerous awards, including the Federal Cross of Merit, the Gramophone Award, the German Culture Prize, the Cultural Honorary Prize of the City of Munich, the Rheingau Music Prize, and the Bavarian Maximilian Order. She plays a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1742) as well as an instrument made by Philipp Augustin (2018).