Vladimir Jurowski conducts Brahms and Wagner

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.

Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Sir Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career of a concert pianist with those of a composer and writer. In recognition of his contribution to cultural life, he became the first classical performer to be given a MacArthur Fellowship and was awarded a Knighthood for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2022.

In a career spanning over 40 years, Hough has played regularly with most of the world’s leading orchestras, including televised and filmed appearances with the Berlin, London, China, Seoul and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Concertgebouw, Budapest Festival and the NHK Symphony Orchestras. He has been a regular guest of recital series and festivals worldwide. including Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Salzburg, Verbier, La Roque‑d’Anthéron, Aspen, Tanglewood, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh.

Sir Stephen Hough opens his 2025/26 season at the Elbphilharmonie, launching the Hamburg Staatsorchester’s season under its new music director Omer Meir Wellber with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, for which he has composed a brand-new second movement. Over the following 12 months, he gives more than 60 concerts/recitals across three continents, appearing with leading orchestras in the US, Europe, and Asia. This season also marks the Asian premiere of his Piano Concerto The World of Yesterday—named after Stefan Zweig’s memoir—with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, followed by its Korean premiere with Symphony S.O.N.G. His season also features a series of high-profile recital appearances, including Wigmore Hall in London and Klavierfestival Ruhr in Germany. His Piano Quintet (Les Noces Rouges), inspired by an episode in American novelist Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, and commissioned by the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society in 2024, will receive its European and UK premieres at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and Southbank Centre in London.

Hough’s discography of over 70 recordings has garnered awards including the Diapason d’Or de l’Année, several GRAMMY nominations, and eight Gramophone Awards including Record of the Year and the Gold Disc. For Hyperion he has recorded the complete piano concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saëns and Tchaikovsky as well as celebrated solo recordings of the Final Piano Pieces of Brahms, Chopin’s complete nocturnes, waltzes, ballades and scherzi, as well as recitals of Schumann, Schubert, Franck, Debussy and Mompou. Recent releases include an album of Hough’s own Piano Concerto in March 2025 with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder.

As a composer, Hough’s Fanfare Toccata was commissioned for the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and performed by all 30 competitors. His 2021 String Quartet No.1 Les Six Rencontres was written for and recorded by the Takács Quartet for Hyperion Records. Hough’s body of songs, choral and instrumental works have been commissioned by Musée du Louvre, National Gallery of London, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, the Wigmore Hall, the Genesis Foundation, Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, BBC Sounds, and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet. His music is published by Josef Weinberger Ltd.

As an author, Hough’s memoir Enough: Scenes from Childhood, was published by Faber & Faber in Spring 2023. It follows his 2019 collection of essays Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More which received a Royal Philharmonic Society Award and was named one of the Financial Times’ Books of the Year. His novel The Final Retreat was published in 2018 (Sylph Editions). He has also written for The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian and the Spectator. Hough is an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple, an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, an Honorary Fellow of Cambridge University’s Girton College, the International Chair of Piano Studies and a Companion of the Royal Northern College of Music and is on the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York.

Born in Sacramento, California, singer Irene Roberts is one of the most remarkable mezzo-sopranos of her generation, captivating audiences with her powerful vocal expressiveness and commanding stage presence.

In the 2025/26 season, she will appear as Brangäne in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, and the International May Festival in Wiesbaden. At the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she will also sing Carmen and Kundry (Parsifal). The highlight of the season will be her role debut as Sieglinde in Tobias Kratzer’s new production of Die Walküre at the Bavarian State Opera.

At the 2024 Bayreuth Festival, Irene Roberts made her acclaimed festival debut as Venus in Tobias Kratzer’s celebrated production of Tannhäuser, a role she also sang to great acclaim at the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival and in 2022 at the Opéra National de Lyon.

From 2015/16 to 2023/24, Irene Roberts was a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she sang a wide repertoire, including Hänsel, Marguerite (La damnation de Faust), Nicklausse, Cherubino, Rosina, Brangäne, and the title role in Carmen. Since then, she has appeared as a guest at the Deutsche Oper as Eboli (Don Carlo), Kundry, and once again as Carmen.

Further guest engagements took Irene Roberts to the Bavarian State Opera (Suzuki, Kundry), the Tyrolean Festival Erl (Kundry), the Hanover State Opera (Kundry), the Teatro Massimo Palermo (Brangäne), the New National Theatre Tokyo (Amneris), the Teatro La Fenice (Amneris), the Opéra National de Lorraine and the Opéra de Dijon (Boesmans’ Julie), the Stadttheater Klagenfurt (Venus), the Dutch National Opera (Muse/Nicklausse), and the Macerata Opera Festival (Carmen), and in the USA to the San Francisco Opera (Offred/ The Handmaid’s Tale, Carmen, Dorabella, among others), the Metropolitan Opera, the Palm Beach Opera, the Atlanta Opera, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the New Orleans Opera, and the Lyric Opera Baltimore.

Irene Roberts can be heard on Opera Rara’s studio recording as Malvina Douglas in Mercadante’s Il Proscritto, conducted by Carlo Rizzi, which was released in 2023.

Irene Roberts is also in demand internationally as a concert singer, performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding, the San Francisco Symphony and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Sir Donald Runnicles, and in recitals at Wigmore Hall in London.

Swedish tenor Joachim Bäckström opened his 2025/26 season with a role debut as Lohengrin at Malmö Opera and this winter will make his house debut at Opéra de Monte-Carlo as Siegmund. He follows this with another house debut at Bayerische Staatsoper as Narraboth in Salome, and a return to the role of Siegmund in the company’s new production of Die Walküre. In April 2026 he debuts with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under conductor Vladimir Jurowski, in a concert performance of Die Walküre.

Joachim Bäckström began the 2024/25 season as Don José in Carmen at both the Royal Swedish Opera and the Göteborg Opera, followed by Peter Grimes, also at the Göteborg Opera and Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Norwegian National Opera.

Joachim Bäckström is regularly engaged as a guest soloist at the Göteborg Opera where he has appeared in roles such as Hoffmann in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Don José, Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana, Michel in Martinů’s Trois fragments de Juliette, Francis in the world premiere of the opera Mythomania by Paula af Malmborg Ward, Grigorij in Boris Godunov, Theseus in Monster in the Maze and Laertes in Thomas’ Hamlet.

Since his house debut as Tamino Joachim has been a guest at the Royal Swedish Opera in several productions. In 2019/20 he made his role debut as Siegmund in Die Walküre, which brought international attention and in 2023/24 Joachim made his role debut there as Parsifal.

At the Finnish National Opera Joachim has sung Siegmund in a new production of Die Walküre and Erik in Der fliegende Holländer. He sang the title role in David Radok’s award-winning Peter Grimes new production at Janáček Theatre in Brno and he has performed Don Carlos at Theater Basel.

As Don José in Carmen Joachim Bäckström has appeared at the Norwegian National Opera, the Finnish National Opera, the Royal Danish Opera, Opera Østfold in Norway, Malmö Opera and at the Wuppertaler Bühnen in Germany. He has sung Tamino in Die Zauberflöte at Le Grand Théâtre de Genève, Royal Danish Opera and the Royal Swedish Opera. 2017. He received great acclaim for his interpretation of Hoffmann in Les contes d’Hoffmann at Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen. Joachim has sung Atis in Joseph Martin Krauss’ Proserpin at Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci and Duca in Rigoletto at NorrlandsOperan in Sweden.

At Malmö Opera Joachim has performed the roles of des Grieux in Massenet’s Manon, Rodolfo in La Bohème and Roméo in Roméo et Juliette, Tamino, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, Steva in Jenufa and Don José.

Joachim Bäckström studied at the Royal Danish Opera Academy in Copenhagen and made his debut in January 2010 as Don José at the Royal Danish Opera.

Joachim Bäckström has received scholarships and awards such as Birgit Nilsson, Christina Nilsson, Jussi Björling Society, Oscar Crawford, Odd Fellow and Idella Foundation.

Mika Kares has established himself as one of today’s internationally most sought-after basses. His vast repertoire covers all the great Italian and German composers such as Verdi, Wagner and Mozart, in addition to the most important roles of the slavic and Finnish tradition.

Distinguished by his colourful bass voice, Kares regularly guests at the most renowned houses and festivals worldwide and has worked with conductors including Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, Teodor Currentzis, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Fabio Luisi, Marc Minkowski, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Franz Welser-Möst, Sebastian Weigle, François-Xavier Roth, Klaus Mäkelä, Kent Nagano, Kirill Petrenko, Marco Armiliato, Thomas Guggeis and Tarmo Peltokoski.

Recent seasons’ opera highlights include i.a. Hagen/Götterdämmerung at the Bayreuth Festival, the Vienna State Opera and Berlin State Opera (where he also sang Fasolt and Hunding, as well as Vodník/Rusalka, Ivan/Khovanshchina and Zaccaria/Nabucco in new productions), Bluebeard/Bluebeard’s Castle at the Salzburg Festival, Sarastro/Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera, Il Commendatore/Don Giovanni at The Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Salzburg and Savonlinna Festivals, Daland/The Flying Dutchman at the Lyric Opera, Fafner/Das Rheingold and Jacopo Fiesco/Simon Boccanegra at the Opéra National de Paris, King Heinrich/Lohengrin, King Marke/Tristan und Isolde, Padre Guardiano/La forza del destino and Balthazar/La Favorite at the Bavarian State Opera, Gremin/Eugene Onegin at the Vienna State Opera, Landgraf Hermann/Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Zurich Opera, Zaccaria/Nabucco at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Inquisitor/The Fiery Angel at Teatro Real de Madrid, Great Inquisitor/Don Carlo at Teatro alla Scala, and Ramfis/Aida at Théâtre Royale de La Monnaie in Brussels, as well as the monumental Finnish roles of Antti/The Horseman (A. Sallinen) at the Finnish National Opera and Paavo/The Last Temptations (J. Kokkonen) at Opera Tampere and the Savonlinna Opera Festival, where he recently also made his debut as Boris Godunow.

In addition, Mika Kares is very sought after as a concert singer, his broad repertoire including key works such as Mozart’s Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 and Missa Solemnis, Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No 8, as well as Shostakovich’s Symphonies No 13 and 14.

Recent concert highlights include concerts with Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta/King René with Kirill Petrenko and the Berliner Philharmoniker, Strauss’ Capriccio/La Roche with Christian Thielemann, and Adriana Lecouvreur/Prince de Bouillon with Anna Netrebko and Marco Armiliato, both at the Salzburg Festival, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the hr-Sinfonieorchester as well as at the BBC Proms under the baton of Sakari Oramo, Verdi’s Requiem with the Gewandhausorchester under Franz Welser-Möst, Mozart’s Requiem with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Riccardo Muti) and the Vienna Philharmonic, Shostakovich’s Symphony no 14 under Klaus Mäkelä with the Oslo Philharmonic, Mahler’s Symphony No 8 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu, as well as a concert performance of Bluebeard’s Castle with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Susanna Mälkki, which was released on CD (BIS Records) and nominated for the 2022 Grammy Award.

Additional honours include the BBC Music Magazine’s Opera Award 2017 for the recording Don Giovanni with Teodor Currentzis and musicAeterna, the nomination for Best Opera Recording at the International Classical Music Awards 2019 for Boris Godunov with Kent Nagano and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the nomination at the International Opera Awards 2014 with the recording ‘Der fliegende Holländer/Le Vaisseau fantome (Wagner/Dietsch)’ with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, as well as the nomination for Male Singer of the Year at the International Opera Awards 2023 and 2025.

In the current 2025-26 season, he will be back in Paris when the third part of Calixto Bieito’s RING, Siegfried, premieres with Kares as Fafner. He will also be back on stage at the Berlin State Opera as Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen in the revival of the RING by Dmitri Tcherniakov under the baton of Christian Thielemann, as well as Ivan in the revival of Khovanshchina. New productions of Don Carlo/Filippo II and Iolanta/King René will bring him back to Tampere and Helsinki.

Kares can also be heard on the concert stage in the great Wagner roles, including King Marke/Tristan und Isolde in Helsinki and Hunding/Die Walküre in Lisbon as well as with the SWR Symphony Orchestra under Francois-Xavier Roth and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Vladimir Jurowski.

n the summer of 2026, Mika Kares will return to the Green Hill in Bayreuth, where he can again be heard as Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen, as well as Daland in Der fliegende Holländer.