Vladimir Jurowski & Paul Gay

Vladimir Jurowski has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since 2017. He has meanwhile extended his contract until 2027. In parallel, he has been General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich since 2021.

After receiving training at the Moscow Conservatory The conductor, pianist and musicologist Vladimir Jurowski emigrated to Germany in 1990. Here he continued his studies at the music conservatories in Dresden and Berlin.  In 1995 he made his international debut at the British Wexford Festival with Rimski-Korsakov’s Mainacht and in the same year at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Nabucco. Subsequently he was, among other things, First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper Berlin (1997- 2001) and Music Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera (2001-2013). In 2003 Vladimir Jurowski was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and has been its Principal Conductor since 2007 until 2021. He was also Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra Yevgeny Svetlanov of the Russian Federation until 2021, Artistic Director of the International George Enescu Festival in Bucharest and Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in Great Britain. He works regularly with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the ensemble unitedberlin.

Vladimir Jurowski has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and North America, including the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, 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 Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

He is a recurring guest conductor in in London, Berlin, Dresden, Luzern, Schleswig-Holstein und Grafenegg as well as at the Rostopowitsch-Festival. Although Vladimir Jurowski is invited as a guest conductor by top orchestras from all over the world, in future he would like to concentrate his activities on that geographical area which is acceptable to him from an ecological point of view.

In 2022/2023 he will perform with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in concerts in various cities in Germany, Italy and Antwerp in the Netherlands. The joint CD recordings of Vladimir Jurowski and the RSB began in 2015 with Alfred Schnittke’s Symphony No. 3, followed by works by Britten, Hindemith, Strauss, Mahler and soon again Schnittke.

Vladimir Jurowski has been the recipient of numerous awards for his achievements, including various international record prizes. In 2016, he was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Prince Charles at the Royal College of Music in London. In 2018, the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards named him Conductor of the Year. In summer 2020, Jurowski was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit by the Romanian President in recognition of his work as Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival.

French bass-baritone Paul Gay is known internationally for his portrayals of leading roles in the French repertoire.  He collaborates with conductors such as Ivan Fischer, Seiji Ozawa, Michel Plasson, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Semyon Bychkov, Philippe Jordan, Alain Altinoglu, William Christie, Emmanuelle Haïm and has been invited for new productions by Willy Decker, Luc Bondy, Peter Stein, Richard Jones, Claus Guth, Laurent Pelly, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Robert Carsen.

His principle repertoire includes Golaud (Pelléas et Melisande), a role he has sung at the Paris Opera, at La Monnaie Brussels, in Oslo, Frankfurt, Torino and in Lyon, and Mephisto (Faust), which he has been invited to sing at the Paris Opera, the Maggio Musicale Firenze and at the Bordeaux Opera. Other signature roles include Saint François, which he debuted in a new production at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, where he has also appeared in productions of Der Zwerg, I Capuletti e i Montecchi, L’enfant et les sortilèges.

Paul is a regular guest at the Paris Opera where his roles have included Don Fernando (Fidelio), Harasta (The Cunning Little Vixen), Achilla (Giulio Cesare), Don Diègue (Le Cid), Flint (Billy Budd) and Le Comte des Grieux (Manon). He also appears regularly in Brussels, Frankfurt and Lyon and he made his North American debut as Escamillo (Carmen) at the Canadian Opera Company. 2016 also saw him appear as Frère Laurent in Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette in Amsterdam.

He has taken part in several contemporary creations including ‘L’Ecole des Femmes’ by Rolf Liebermann at the Bordeaux Opera and Philippe Boesmans’ opera, Yvonne Princesse de Bourgogne, a production seen in Paris, Brussels and Vienna.

Having completed his studies, winning a ‘Premier Prix’ at the Paris Conservatory, Paul went on to gain his first operatic experience as a company member in Osnabrück, performing roles such as Colline (la Bohème), a role which he returned to in Barcelona in 2016, Walter (Luisa Miller) and the title role of Don Quichotte. He gained attention as a prize-winner in several international vocal competitions and he continued his vocal development, taking lessons in Cologne with the renowned bass Kurt Moll.

2017/2018 saw his return to the role of Mephisto at Monte Carlo, as well as productions of Aida in Hong Kong, and Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Dutch National Opera. He appeared at Oviedo Opera in Pelléas et Mélisande and at the Dorset Opera Festival as Don Diegue in Massenet’s Le Cid. He also sang in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Seiki Ozawa, for which he received a Grammy Award in 2016 for best opera recording with the same conductor.

Alejandro Regueira Caumel, born in 1991 in Málaga/Spain, began playing the violin and piano at the age of six. In Madrid, he studied with Anna Baget and moved to Dionisio Rodríguez as a violist in 2008. In 2009 he came to Germany and studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” with Pauline Sachse and Tabea Zimmermann. Master classes with Wilfried Strehle, Andreas Willwohl, Roberto Díaz, Felix Schwartz and Jean Sulem complemented his education.

Chamber music has been a particular focus of his career to date. He participated in the chamber music festival of the “Kronberg Academy” and in the “Seiji Ozawa International Academy Switzerland”, performed repeatedly with the Frielinghaus Ensemble and can be heard regularly at chamber music festivals such as the “Festival Ribeira Sacra” or in the Nikolaisaal Potsdam. He also won first prizes at various competitions, including the “Concurso Ibérico de Música de Cámara con Arpa” (in duo with harpist Maud Edenwald), the XII. International Competition for Viola and Cello “Villa de Llanes”, at the “Concurso María Cristina” for young soloists and at the competition of “Jeunesses Musicales” in Spain.

Alejandro Regueira Caumel gained orchestral experience as a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and the Spanish National Youth Orchestra, as well as through substitute work with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and as principal violist with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and the Orquesta Nacional de España.

From 2010 to 2012 he was an academist with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and has been its principal violist since 2015.

Born into a family of musicians, Konstanze von Gutzeit began playing the cello at the age of three. She completed her studies from the age of thirteen with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna, and later with Jens Peter Maintz in Berlin and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt in Weimar.

Since 2012 Konstanze von Gutzeit has held the position of principal cellist of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. She is also internationally active as a soloist and chamber musician. She has performed with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Bochumer Sinfoniker, the Vienna, Munich and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestras, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and many others. She has worked with conductors such as Kurt Masur, Vladimir Jurowski, Michael Sanderling, Marek Janowski, Alexander Shelley and Yuri Bashmet. She has appeared at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in numerous recitals and chamber music concerts.

From the beginning of her musical career, Konstanze von Gutzeit drew attention to herself through numerous international competition successes. She is a prizewinner of the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann 2010 and the International Prague Spring Competition 2012. In 2013 she was awarded 1st prize at the “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” University Competition in Berlin as well as the interdisciplinary “Mendelssohn Prize”. She was also the winner of the Domenico Gabrielli Competition in Berlin, the “Gradus ad Parnassum” Competition in Austria, the “International Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award” in Switzerland and the “International Suggia Prize” in Portugal. At the German Music Competition 2010 she was awarded a scholarship by the German Music Council and included in the national selection “Concerts of Young Artists”.

Konstanze von Gutzeit plays a cello by Gioffredo Cappa from 1677 as well as a new instrument by the Berlin instrument maker Ragnar Hayn from 2017.