Yearning for spring

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.

Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic music. In regular performances with the major orchestras, recitals in the world’s music capitals, and through his extensive and acclaimed Nonesuch recordings, he has won a large and devoted following.

One of today’s most revered recitalists, Richard Goode performed in 2019/2020 in London, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Tallahassee, at the Ravinia Festival and at colleges and universities around the country. He will play Mozart with Vladimir Jurowski and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and has recitals in Italy, Switzerland, and the UK. His masterclasses continue to be hailed as truly memorable events.

In recent seasons, Richard Goode appeared as soloist with Louis Langrée and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in a program filmed as part of a documentary celebrating the 50th Anniversary of one of the country’s most popular summer musical events. He also toured in the U.S. with one of the world’s most admired orchestras and his recording partner, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer. Their recording of the five Beethoven Piano Concertos has won worldwide acclaim; Goode performed Concertos No. 2 and No. 4 on the tour, which included performances in February 2017 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Lincoln Center, and for the Chicago Symphony, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, and Celebrity Series of Boston. Other orchestral appearances include the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York String Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and in Europe with the London Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, and BBC Philharmonic.

Among other highlights of recent seasons have been the recitals in which, for the first time in his career, Mr. Goode performed the last three Beethoven Sonatas in one program, drawing capacity audiences and raves in such cities as New York, London, and Berlin. The New York Times, in reviewing his Carnegie Hall performance, hailed his interpretations as “majestic, profound readings… Mr. Goode’s playing throughout was organic and inspired, the noble, introspective themes unfolding with a simplicity that rendered them all the more moving.” He was also heard as soloist with Andris Nelsons in his first season as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and at Carnegie Hall, where Goode was featured in two chamber music concerts with young artists from the Marlboro Music Festival, in a master class on Debussy and in a Main Hall recital. To mark the 25th Anniversary in 2018-19 of the release of his historic recordings of the Complete Beethoven Sonatas, Nonesuch Records re-released the acclaimed recordings.

An exclusive Nonesuch recording artist, Goode has made more than two dozen recordings over the years, ranging from solo and chamber works to lieder and concertos. His recording of the five Beethoven concertos with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer was released in 2009 to exceptional critical acclaim, described as “a landmark recording” by the Financial Times and nominated for a Grammy award. His 10-CD set of the complete Beethoven sonatas cycle, the first-ever by an American-born pianist, was nominated for a Grammy and has been ranked among the most distinguished recordings of this repertoire. Other recording highlights include a series of Bach Partitas, a duo recording with Dawn Upshaw, and Mozart piano concertos with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

A native of New York, Richard Goode studied with Elvira Szigeti and Claude Frank, with Nadia Reisenberg at the Mannes College of Music, and with Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute. His numerous prizes over the years include the Young Concert Artists Award, First Prize in the Clara Haskil Competition, the Avery Fisher Prize, and a Grammy award for his recording of the Brahms Sonatas with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. His first public performances of the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas at Kansas City’s Folly Theater and New York’s 92Y in 1987-88 brought him to international attention being hailed by the New York Times as “among the season’s most important and memorable events.” It was later performed with great success at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1994 and 1995.

Mr. Goode served, together with Mitsuko Uchida, as co-Artistic Director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in Marlboro, Vermont from 1999 through 2013.

Ralf Sochaczewsky received conducting lessons under Christian Grube and Marc Piollet at the Berlin University of the Arts. Later he studied choir conducting under Jörg-Peter Weigle and orchestral conducting under Prof. Reuter at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”.

He directs the Berlin choir Cantus Domus, with which he won a 1st prize at the Berlin Choir Competition in 2017 and a 3rd prize at the 8th Choir Competition of the Deutscher Musikrat in Dortmund . From 1998 to 2012, he conducted the Ensemberlino Vocale choir and successfully participated in choir competitions (1st prize at Chorfest Bremen (Bremen Choir Festival) 2008).

He regularly works with choirs like the Berlin Vocalconsort, the Cappella Amsterdam, the RIAS Kammerchor, and the Berliner Rundfunkchor.

In 2016, he conducted the European premiere of the oratorio “Anthracite Fields” by Julia Wolfe, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, with the DR Vocalensemble and Bang on a Can-All Stars.

Ralf Sochaczewsky has performed with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the National Radio Orchestra Bucharest, and the Chamber Orchestra of the Minsk Philharmonic. He conducted operas at the Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Opera National du Rhin, and the Lithuanian National Opera.

Ralf Sochaczewsky collaborated with various pop groups and artists such as Stargaze and André de Ridder, Bon Iver, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, and Tocotronic. With Cantus Domus, he is a regular guest at festivals such as HaldernPop and KalternPop.

He teaches choral conducting at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”. For his great service to the Berlin choir scene, the Chorverband Berlin awarded him the Geschwister Mendelssohn Medal in 2017.