Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has been Artistic Director of The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen, his only German orchestra, since 2004. One highlight of the collaboration were the celebrated concerts of the Beethoven cycle, which received critical acclaim worldwide. Järvi received numerous awards for the recordings, including the ›Echo Klassik‹ as ›Conductor of the Year‹ and the prestigious ›Annual Prize of the German Record Critics‹.

Following the Beethoven project, he and the orchestra tackled the symphonic works of Schumann and Brahms, which received similarly enthusiastic reviews. Paavo Järvi is also Principal Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Advisor to the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the Järvi Summer Festival in Pärnu, Estonia, and since 2019/20 Artistic Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. He regularly makes appearances as guest conductor with orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras, the Staatskappelle Dresden and the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago and the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he was named ›Artist of the Year‹ by the renowned British magazine Gramophone and the French magazine Diapason. In 2019, he received the ›Opus Klassik‹ as ›Conductor of the Year‹.

Described by the New York Times as one of the »most important artists of his generation«, this Russian-born pianist regularly performs with the world’s leading orchestras. He studied the piano in Hanover and was awarded the highest score in the institute’s history. As a multiple award-winning artist, he was named ›Artist of the Year 2020‹ at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards, followed in November 2020 by a nomination for a Grammy in the category ›Best Classical Instrumental Solo‹. His first recording of all the Beethoven piano sonatas, released in 2019, instantly went to Number 1 in the official classical charts.

Igor Levit played his Beethoven piano sonata cycles at the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Musikfest Berlin, in the Elbphilharmonie and in London’s Wigmore Hall, among others. Additionally, he has regularly given recitals in New York’s Carnegie Hall, in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and also in Vienna’s Musikverein. Concerts for the coming season are planned across the world in metropolises from Tokyo to Los Angeles. In spring 2021, the Lucerne Festival announced the first of a new piano festival curated by Igor Levit, planned for May 2023.

Igor Levit is also well-known for his political commitment for which he was awarded the 5th International Beethoven Prize in 2019. This outstanding pianist has been working together with The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen for many years.