Vladimir Jurowski & Yefim Bronfman

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.

Yefim Bronfman is recognised worldwide as one of the most important pianists of our time. His impressive technique, his power and his high level of interpretation are appreciated and admired by the specialised press and the public alike. He belongs to that illustrious circle of artists who enjoy constant interest from festivals, orchestras, conductors and recital organisers.

As a sought-after touring partner of the world’s best orchestras and conductors, he can be heard in concerts in Europe with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra at the start of the season, followed by a tour of China and Japan with the Vienna Philharmonic. In the USA, re-invitations to the orchestras in Cleveland, New York, Houston, Portland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, Sarasota and Pittsburgh will take him to the 2024-2025 season, while in Europe he will be a guest soloist in Hamburg, Helsinki, Berlin, Lyon and Vienna. In spring 2025, he will present a new recital programme at Carnegie Hall, preceded by performances in Austin, St. Louis, Stillwater OK, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Washington DC, Amsterdam, Rome, Lisbon and Spain. Two chamber music projects are also particularly noteworthy, a duo programme with Emmanuel Pahud in Europe in autumn and a trio project with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Pablo Ferrández in the USA in spring.

Bronfman regularly works with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Jurowski, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jaap van Zweden, Franz Welser-Möst and David Zinman. In summer, he is a welcome guest at the major music festivals in Europe and the USA. A passionate chamber musician, Bronfman has performed with Pinchas Zukerman, Martha Argerich, Magdalena Kožená, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Emmanuel Pahud and many others. In 1991, he performed a series of recitals in Russia together with Isaac Stern. These were his first public appearances there since emigrating to Israel at the age of 15.

Yefim Bronfman is widely acclaimed for his solo, chamber music and orchestral recordings. He has been nominated six times for a GRAMMY® Award, winning the coveted prize in 1997 for his recording of the Bartók concertos with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen. His extensive recording catalogue includes works for two pianos by Rachmaninov and Brahms with Emanuel Ax, the Prokofiev piano concertos with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta, a recording of works by Mozart and Schubert with the Zukerman Chamber Players and the soundtrack to Disney’s Fantasia 2000. His most recent releases include the 2014 GRAMMY®-nominated recording of Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert (DaCapo), Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, the recital recording ‘Perspectives’ and the recording of all of Beethoven’s piano concertos, including the Triple Concerto with Gil Shaham and Truls Mørk, accompanied by the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under David Zinman (Arte Nova/BMG).

Available on DVD are his interpretation of Franz Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic under Franz Welser-Möst in Schönbrunn (2010, Deutsche Grammophon), Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto with the Concertgebouworkest under Andris Nelsons, recorded as part of the Lucerne Festival 2011, Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle (EuroArts) and both Brahms concertos with The Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst (2015).

Yefim Bronfman was born in Tashkent/Soviet Union. He emigrated to Israel with his family in 1973. Here he studied with Arie Vardi at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. He later continued his studies in the USA at the Juilliard School, the Marlboro School of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music with Rudolf Firkušný, Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin. Bronfman is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honours for American musicians.

In 2010 he was honoured with the Jean Gimbel Lane Prize in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, and in 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.