Vladimir Jurowski & Dina Ivanova

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.

Louise Alder studied at the Royal College of Music’s International Opera School where she was the inaugural Kiri Te Kanawa Scholar. She won the Young Singer Award at the 2017 International Opera Awards and the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the 2017 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. She also won the 2015 inaugural Young British Soloists’ Competition, and is the recipient of Glyndebourne’s 2014 John Christie Award.
In the 2022/23 season include Fiordiligi in a new production of Così fan tutte for the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, and a return to the Glyndebourne Festival as Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress.
Recent successes have included Susanna in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro for the Opernhaus Zürich; Susanna and Sophie Der Rosenkavalier for the Wiener Staatsoper; Susanna, Marzelline Fidelio and Gretel Hänsel und Gretel at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; Musetta La bohème for the English National Opera; Cleopatra Giulio Cesare for the Theater an der Wien, Zerlina Don Giovanni and the title role in La Calisto for the Teatro Réal, Madrid; Zerlina for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Sophie, Zerlina and Lucia The Rape of Lucretia for Glyndebourne; Ilia Idomeneo and Pamina Die Zauberflöte for Garsington Opera and Gilda Rigoletto, Susanna, Pamina, Despina Così fan tutte, Cleopatra Giulio Cesare, Romilda Serse, Sophie, Gretel and the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen for Oper Frankfurt.
On the concert platform she sings Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle and his Symphony No. 4 with the Bayerisches Statsorchester/Vladimir Jurowski, Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen with Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/Jakub Hrůša and Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Kirill Petrenko. Previous highlights include Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Ulster Orchestra/Daniele Rustioni at the BBC Proms, the title role in Theodora at the BBC Proms and at the Kozerthaus in Vienna with Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen; the title role in Semele on tour with the Monteverdi Choir/Sir John Eliot Gardiner; Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Gardiner, Messiah with the New York Philharmonic/Harry Bicket, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Tokyo Philharmonic/Jonathan Nott, and Mozart Arias at the Salzburg Mozartwoche with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra/Daniel Harding.
Louise is a passionate recitalist, appearing at Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Wigmore Hall, BBC Proms, the Musikverein in Graz, Oper Frankfurt, Madrid’s Fundación Juan March and the Fundación Privada Victoria de los Ángeles in Barcelona, Birmingham’s Barber Institute, the Bath Mozart Festival, Snape Maltings, the Brighton and Oxford Lieder Festivals and in the Perth Concert Hall with pianists Helmut Deutsch, Joseph Middleton, Gary Matthewman, Julius Drake and Roger Vignoles.
Her recordings include Chère Nuit: French Songs featuring songs from Ravel to Yvain (Chandos), The Russian Connection programming songs by Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Medtner and Britten (Chandos) and a disc of Strauss Lieder, Through Life and Love, (Orchid Classics), with pianist Joseph Middleton; Lucia The Rape of Lucretia (Opus Arte) and Silandra in Cesti’s L’Orontea (OEHMS Classics/Oper Frankfurt).

Benjamin Bruns began his singing career as an alto soloist with the boys’ choir in his home city of Hanover. After four years of private singing lessons with Prof. Peter Sefcik, he studied at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg under the Kammersängerin Renate Behle. While still a student, he was offered a permanent contract by the Theater Bremen, a position which allowed him to build up a broadly based repertoire at an early stage. It was followed by a similar contract with the opera house in Cologne. His professional journey then took him via the Dresden State Opera to the Vienna State Opera, where he remained a member of the ensemble until July 2021.

His musical roster contains Mozart roles such as Belmonte (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) but also other important repertoire like Fenton (Falstaff), Camille de Rosillon (The merry Widow), Lysander (Britten: A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Boris Grigorievič (Janáček: Kátia Kabanová) or the Italian Tenor in the Strauss operas Capriccio and Der Rosenkavalier. With Wagner roles like Lohengrin, Loge (The Rhinegold) and Erik (The flying Dutchman) or Matteo in Strauss’ Arabella he made his first steps into the light dramatic repertoire. In spring 2021 he had his debut as Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio (1804) at the Vienna State Opera.

Oratorio and lieder form an important counterweight to Benjamin Bruns’s stage work. At the heart of his extensive concert repertoire are the great sacred works by Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn. He has sung with such renowned ensembles as the Berlin Philharmonics, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonics, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bach Collegium Japan, the WDR Symphony Orchestra as well as Choir and Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome or the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

Benjamin Bruns is an awardee of the Bundeswettbewerb Gesang (Federal Singing Competition) in Berlin, the Mozart Competition in Hamburg and the international singing competition of the Schloss Rheinsberg Chamber Opera. The very special honours accorded to him include the 2008 Kurt Hübner Prize awarded by the Theater Bremen and the 2009 Young Musicians’ Prize awarded by the Schleswig- Holstein Music Festival.

His last CD “Dichterliebe”, containing Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Der arme Peter, Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte as well as Hugo Wolf’s Liederstrauß (piano: Karola Theilll) was praised by the critics and nominated for both, the International Classical Music Awards and the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis.