Vladimir Jurowski conducts Bach’s Mass in B Minor

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.

The young Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva convinces and inspires internationally: her voice has been described as “angelic” (The New York Times), she sings with “pure tone” (Opernwelt) and “immaculate technique” (The Guardian). Finally, the Süddeutsche Zeitung sees her as a sorceress: she can make her voice almost disappear while performing the most insane vocal tricks and garland fireworks.”
Julia Lezhneva’s international career began with a bang when she caused a sensation at the 2010 Classical Brit Awards at London’s Royal Albert Hall with Rossini’s Fra il padre at the invitation of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
Just a decade later she discovers a broad repertoire with various orchestras, conductors, operas and oratorios. She made her debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic in October 2019 and at the Musikverein in Vienna in December 2019 with great success. She was invited back to the Mozart Week Salzburg in January 2020, this time under Sir András Schiff in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and will be performing there in 2023 Sing Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
In December 2020 she made her acclaimed debut with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Herbert Blomstedt.
Orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the Orquestra Nacional de España, the Evgeny Svetlanov Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic invite Julia Lezhneva again and again, and she regularly works with them renowned conductors such as Adam Fischer, Giovanni Antonini, Herbert Blomstedt, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski and Andrea Marcon.
Julia Lezhneva is a welcome guest at the Salzburg Festival, the Schwetzinger Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Dubrovnik Festival, the Festival de la Vézère, the Sion Festival, the Nordland Musikfestukke
Julia Lezhneva’s debut in Handel’s Alcina (Morgana) at the Hamburg State Opera was celebrated with jubilation in September 2018 and she was immediately invited back for Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and other performances of Alcina. In 2021 she sang the role of Poppea in Handel’s new production of Agrippina (director: Barrie Kosky), in 2022 Zerlina in Don Giovanni – again at the Hamburg State Opera. In addition, she appears in several other opera productions, including Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso (Angelica), Porpora’s Polifemo (Galatea), Germanico in Germania (Ersinda), Carlo il Calvo (Gildippe), Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (Susanna, Barberina), Handel’s Tamerlano and Oreste.
In winter 2019 she made her debut in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (conducted by Vladimir Jurowski); in the same season she sang in Handel’s Messiah and La Resurrezione, Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans; as well as in Haydn’s Creation and Mahler’s 4th Symphony.
Julia Lezhneva regularly gives recitals. Her repertoire includes songs and arias by Russian, English, Italian and German composers.
Julia Lezhneva releases exclusively on DECCA records. In April 2017 she released her last solo album with arias by Carl Heinrich Graun together with Concerto Köln. For this she received the OPUS Klassik 2018. Recent publications are Porpora’s Carlo il Calvo (2022), Vivaldi’s Gloria with Franco Fagioli and Diego Fasolis (2018), Porpora’s Germanico in Germania with Max Emanuel Cencic (2018), Handel’s arias with Il Giardino Armonico ( 2015) and her acclaimed debut album Alleluia also with Il Giardino Armonico (2014), also Pergolesi Stabat Mater with Philippe Jaroussky, Diego Fasolis, I Barocchisti (2013).
Julia Lezhneva was born in 1989 as the daughter of two geophysicists on the Russian island of Sakhalin and began taking piano and singing lessons at the age of five. She graduated from the Gretchaninov Music School and continued her singing and piano studies at the Moscow Conservatory. She gained international attention at 17 when she won the Elena Obraztsova International Competition and at 18 opened the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro with Juan Diego Flórez. In 2009 she was awarded first prize at the Paris Opera Competition, becoming the youngest ever winner of the competition. The magazine “Opernwelt” named her “Young Singer of the Year” in 2011 for her debut at La Monnaie in Brussels. The following year she performed with the Victoires de la Monnaie in Brussels.
Julia Lezhneva’s teachers and mentors include Dennis O’Neill, Yvonne Kenny, Elena Obraztsova, Alberto Zedda, Richard Bonynge and Thomas Quasthoff.

Alice Lackner’s voice has been described by the press as “beguilingly secure, with astral heights and penetrating power” (Oper!) and as “utterly enchanting” (Tagesspiegel). She regularly appears with orchestras such as the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Essener Philharmoniker, Russian State Orchestra Kaliningrad, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, lautten compagney Berlin, Ensemble 1700 and Concerto Theresia, under the direction of renowned conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski, Wolfgang Katschner, Dorothee Oberlinger, Tomáš Netopil, Andrea Marchiol and Andreas Reize.
Highlights of recent seasons have included the soprano solo in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 at the Konzerthaus Berlin, “Martha” in the world premiere of Gordon Kampe’s “Dogville” at the Aalto Theater Essen, “Ruggiero” in Handel’s “Alcina” in a production by lautten compagney Berlin, and “Negiorea” in Andrea Bernasconi’s “L’Huomo” at the Margravial Opera House Bayreuth and at the Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival. Other engagements have taken her to the Berlin Philharmony, the Berlin Music Festival, the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the Days of Early Music in Herne and the Mosel Music Festival.
Alice Lackner’s core concert repertoire includes the alto roles in cantatas and oratorios by J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart and Mendelssohn. However, the mezzo-soprano’s repertoire also includes less frequently performed works such as the masses for the dead by Duruflé or Suppè, the “Membra Jesu Nostri” (Buxtehude) and “Der Sieg des Glaubens” (Ries). Recently, she has also appeared in concert as a soprano, for example in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, in Mozart’s “Great Mass in C minor”, in Rossini’s “Petite Messe Solenelle” and in Stravinsky’s “Les Noces”.
A major focus of her work is lieder singing. In 2021, Alice Lackner released her debut CD “Ernsthaft?!” with the GENUIN label, together with her lied accompanist Imke Lichtwark. In addition to songs by Schönberg and Zemlinsky, this CD also includes first recordings of songs by the composer Sven Daigger. In October 2023, Alice Lackner recorded a first edition of all songs by George Antheil for Deutschlandfunk together with pianist Philip Mayers. Further recordings for cpo, BR-Klassik and ARTE Concert testify to her artistic work.
Alice Lackner was born in Munich, studied singing with Prof. Kunz-Eisenlohr at the HfMT Cologne/Aachen and is currently receiving further training from Sami Kustaloglu in Berlin. She holds a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation and has won prizes from “cantatebach!”, the Rheinsberg Castle Chamber Opera, and the “Podium junger Gesangssolisten”. With a degree in sociology, she works as a researcher at ZOiS Berlin. From 2025 onwards, she will take over the artistic direction of the “Güldener Herbst” festival in Thuringia.

A former choral scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge, Hugh Cutting is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Music where he was a member of the International Opera Studio. On graduating, he was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal, presented by King Charles III. In the autumn of 2021, Hugh became the first countertenor to win the Kathleen Ferrier Award and is the first countertenor to become a BBC New Generation Artist (2022-24). In the 2021/22 season Hugh was a member of Les Arts Florissants 10th Jardin des Voix and received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Arsace in Handel’s Partenope conducted by William Christie. Further highlights included his Carnegie Hall debut singing Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of St Luke’s and Bernard Labadie; Refugee in Dove’s Flight and Bertarido in Handel’s Rodelinda with the RCM International Opera Studio, Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater at the London Handel Festival with Adrian Butterfield; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with the Southbank Sinfonia; Tavener’s The Hidden Face with the City of London Sinfonia; Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Bach’s Geist und Seele with the Oxford Bach Soloists; Handel’s Messiah with Instruments of Time and Truth and Edward Higginbottom; Purcell Odes for a Queen with The English Concert and Kristian Bezuidenhout, and a performance of Bach and Handel arias with the Hanover Band and Laurence Cummings.
This season Hugh makes his debut at Opernhaus Zürich singing Monteverdi madrigals in Christian Spuck’s ballet setting.
Upcoming concert engagements include multiple appearances at the Wigmore Hall alongside Iestyn Davies and Ensemble Guadagni, La Nuova Musica, The English Concert, and The Sixteen; a world premiere with the BBC Philharmonic and an appearance at the Oxford Lieder Festival; Handel’s Messiah with The Sixteen and Harry Christophers and with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Adrian Lucas; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras and John Eliot Gardiner; Bach’s B Minor Mass with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Vaclav Luks; Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Finnish Radio Orchestra and Nick Collon and in a European tour with Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe, as well as multiple projects with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie including Polinesso in Handel’s Ariodante and Arsace Partenope.
Song is central to Hugh’s ambition, and he seeks to expand the possibilities of countertenor repertoire in this sphere. In 2022/23 he appears in recital at the Wigmore Hall, Ryedale Festival, and at the Thames Recital Series with ‘Untethered’, a programme based on Michael A. Singer’s book ‘The Untethered Soul’, which centres around the concept of liberation, namely from the thoughts and perspectives that disturb our daily lives. Many of these works will be recorded as part of Hugh’s involvement in the BBC New Generation Artist scheme for later broadcast on Radio 3. He frequently collaborates with pianist George Ireland, lutenist Danny Murphy and composer Piers Connor Kennedy both in recital and concert.
Hugh works regularly with SoundVoice UK and composer Hannah Conway, most recently performing at Snape Maltings and King’s Place alongside Roderick Williams and Lucy Crowe in a project exploring identity and voice loss in terminal health conditions. He has recorded Purcell Royal Odes and Birthday Odes for Queen Mary with The King’s Consort and Robert King alongside Iestyn Davies and Carolyn Sampson, and Lamento with Iestyn Davies and Fretwork for Signum Classics.

Patrick Grahl, who was born in Leipzig, was initially a member of the Thomanerchor under Georg Christoph Biller, then received his singing training there at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Music Academy with Berthold Schmid and completed his studies with the master class exam (with distinction). Master classes with Peter Schreier, Gotthold Schwarz, Gerd Türk, KS Ileana Cotrubas and Prof. Karl-Peter Kammerlander gave him important impulses for his artistic development.

While still a student he was able to master and perform roles such as Alfred (Strauß: Die Fledermaus), Tamino (Mozart: Die Zauberflöte) and Albert (Britten: Albert Herring). He has also appeared as a young servant in Richard Strauss’ Elektra, in Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde as the shepherd/voice of a young sailor at the Opéra National de Lyon and as Don Ottavio (Mozart: Don Giovanni) at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

In 2016 the tenor won 1st prize at the XX. International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. He is now a much sought-after oratorio and concert singer and has made guest appearances with orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the NDR Radio Philharmonic, the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI di Torino and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniele Gatti, Hartmut Haenchen, Ludwig Güttler, Ton Koopman, Andrew Manze, Leopold Hager, Omer Meir Wellber, Stefano Montanari and Hans-Christoph Rademann. He is still closely connected to the Thomanerchor and the Dresdner Kreuzchor.

There are interesting projects in the calendar: in Bucharest he sings the St. John Passion, the St. Matthew Passion in Hamburg under Jörg Endebrock and Leipzig under Andreas Reize; in Cologne Haydn’s Timpani Mass under Manfred Honeck; in Munich the Christmas Oratorio under Andreas Scholl; as well as to Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg and Vienna under Hans-Christoph Rademann and as Jaquino in Mozart’s Fidelio, a tour through Brussels, London and Paris with the Insula Orchestra under Laurence Equilbey takes him. In addition to his numerous engagements on the concert and opera stage, Patrick Grahl attaches great importance to chamber music projects and recitals. He works with pianists such as Daniel Heide and Klara Hornig, among others.

Until 2013 Patrick Grahl was a scholarship holder of the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation, Bonn. In 2014 he won first prize in the Early Music Advancement Award from Saarland Radio and the Saarland Academy for Early Music with the Ensemble Barockwerk Ost. He was also a member of the men’s quartet Thios Omilos until 2018. Since then he has only worked as a soloist.

The German baritone Christian Immler is currently one of the most sought-after singers in his field. He works with outstanding conductors, ensembles and directors both in concert and opera, and also sings Bach’s cantatas
convincing like Mahler’s orchestral songs. Christian Immler studied in his hometown Munich, in Frankfurt and as a DAAD scholarship holder at the London Guildhall School of Music & Drama with Prof. Rudolf Piernay. He also completed a musicology degree at the University of London. In 2001 he received first prize in the Nadia et Lili Boulanger competition in Paris. In the last ten years, Christian Immler has embarked on an international career that stretches from the Boston Early Music Festival to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Suzuki’s Bach Collegium Japan and the Montréal Symphony Orchestra to Europe. Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn and Mendelssohn are constants in his repertoire. Numerous concerts with conductors such as Harnoncourt, Minkowski, Pichon, Suzuki, Savall, Herreweghe, Fasolis, Bolton, Nagano, Conlon, Harding, Parrott,orboz, Dantone, Antonini, Christie, Christophers, Bernius, Alarcón and Rousset determine his calendar. Invitations to important festivals such as Salzburg, Aix-en-Provence, Lucerne, Vancouver, BBC Proms, Bergen and Davos followed. As a lieder singer, Christian Immler has been a guest at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Philharmonie in Paris, the Schubertiade in Hohenems, the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Frick Collection in New York. He was accompanied on the piano by pianists such as Helmut Deutsch, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Christoph Berner, Gerold Huber, Gérard Wyss, Georges Starobinski, Silvia Fraser and Danny Driver. Christian Immler regularly traces the joy of scenic work back to the stage of large opera houses. He is a regular guest at the Opéra Comique Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées Paris, the Grand Théâtre Geneva, the Grand Théâtre de Provence, the Opera Dijon, the Teatro la Fenice Venice, the Early Music Festival Boston and the New Israeli Opera. More than 50 award-winning recordings (Grammy nomination, Echo Klassik Award, Diapason d’Or, Diapason Découverte, Diamant d’Opéra, France Musiques Enregistrement de l’année) document his work. In the 2019/20 season he makes his role debut as Rocco in Beethoven’s Leonore conducted by René Jacobs/Freiburger Barockorchester and will appear with Laurence Equilbey and the Insula Orchestra in Weber’s Freischütz at the Rouen Opera and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris as well as in Handel’s Acis and Galatea at the opera Massy. A tour of Europe with Masaaki Suzuki’s Bach Collegium Japan and several concerts in France with Raphael Pichon’s Ensemble Pygmalion follow. Furthermore, Christian Immler will be back with Réne Jacobs and
Akamus in Berlin and give concerts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo.
In addition to numerous international master classes (Fondation Royaumont/Musée d’Orsay, International Summer Academy Salzburg, University of Montreal, etc.), Christian Immler teaches singing at the Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences in Zurich.