Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has been Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2004. One of the many highlights of this collaboration has been the acclaimed, globally celebrated performances of the Beethoven cycle, for which Järvi received numerous awards including the ›Echo Klassik Conductor of the Year‹ award and the prestigious annual ›German Record Critics‹’ award. Their Beethoven project was followed by an intensive exploration of the symphonic works of Schumann and Brahms; both cycles also received numerous awards. Since autumn 2021, the focus has been on Joseph Haydn’s twelve London symphonies, and since 2024, an intensive exploration of Franz Schubert’s symphonies.

Paavo Järvi has been Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich since the start of the 2019/2020 season. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival, which he established in 2011. He regularly appears as a guest conductor with major orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the London Philharmonia Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he was named ›Artist of the Year‹ by both the British magazine Gramophone and the French magazine Diapason. This was followed in 2019 by the Opus Klassik award for ›Conductor of the Year‹. Other awards include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’ Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the title ›Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres‹, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2015, Paavo Järvi also received the Sibelius Medal in recognition of his work in bringing this Finnish composer’s music to a wider audience, and in 2012 he received the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. As a committed supporter of Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013.

Maximilian Schmitt discovered his passion for music at a very young age. Today, this tenor regularly performs on the major international concert stages. Invited by conductors such as Franz Welser-Möst, Claudio Abbado, Teodor
Currentzis as well as many others, he has already worked with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Wiener Sinfoniker, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and is also a regular guest with the Orchestre de Paris and the Orchestre National de France. His broad repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to Mozart to Mendelssohn, Elgar, Mahler and Britten. From 2008, this singer spent four years with the Mannheim National Theatre ensemble where he was heard in a number of major roles. In 2012, he made his debut at the Amsterdam Opera as ›Tamino‹ under Marc Albrecht, gave his debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2016 as ›Don Ottavio‹ and shortly thereafter gave his La Scala Milan debut as ›Pedrillo‹ in Mozart’s ›Entführung aus dem Serail‹ with Zubin Mehta conducting. Highlights of the 2021/22 season include his debut as ›Erik‹ in ›Der fliegende Holländer‹ at the Oper Graz as well as performances of Beethoven’s ›Glorreicher Augenblick‹ in Vienna and Bach’s ›Johannes-Passion‹ in Amsterdam. Schmitt can also be heard internationally with various Lieder programmes at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, at the Heidelberger Frühling, at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, the Kölner Philharmonie and at Wigmore Hall in London.

Writing about this internationally active vocal ensemble, the US journal ›American Record Guide‹ writes: »its sound is like pure gold«. With its founder and artistic director Holger Speck, this high-class ensemble stands for excellence, vivacity and authenticity. Its outstanding reputation is based as much on the faithfulness of style and its historically informed interpretations as it is on the passionately emotional manner with which this choir makes music.

Holger Speck succeeds in realising the tonal-aesthetic characteristics of the respective epoch as well as conveying emotional content. The ensemble’s great reputation and its unmistakeable quality are evident in, among other things, its appearance as cultural ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany on the political stage at the G20 summit in the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. The Vocalensemble Rastatt also enjoys forays into choral symphonic or operatic works, for example with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra or the European Chamber Orchestra, with productions of Mozart operas for Deutsche Grammophon.  ›Le Nozze di Figaro‹ was nominated for a Grammy.

A guest for the second time at the Musikfest Bremen, this ensemble will be celebrating its premiere with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen. During the 22/23 season, Holger Speck will be conducting the Vocalensemble Rastatt in John Neumeier’s new production of “Dona Nobis Pacem” to JS Bach’s B-Minor Mass at the Hamburg Staatsoper.

Christina Landshamer is a versatile artist who, as recitalist as well as with her varied concert and opera repertoire, is in international demand. Her collaborations with renowned conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Manfred Honeck, Alan Gilbert, Marek Janowski and many others regularly result in concerts with major international orchestras – from the Berlin Philharmonic to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra to the Orchestre de Paris. In The States, this soprano has also appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Montreal Symphony Orchestras.

Christina Landshamer has given opera performances at the Komische Oper Berlin, at the Theater an der Wien with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and also with Sir Simon Rattle at the Salzburg Festspiele. At the Nationaloper Amsterdam, she has sung ›Pamina‹ in Simon McBurney’s ›Zauberflöte‹ and ›Woglinde‹ in Wagner’s ›Rheingold‹ at the Bayerischen Staatsoper with Kirill Petrenko conducting. She has also performed in a spectacular La-Fura-dels-Baus production of Haydn’s ›Schöpfung‹ in Paris as well as at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. With her warm, lyric soprano voice, Christina Landshamer is as welcome as a Lieder singer at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade as she is in London, New York or Tokyo.

She has over 50 CD and DVD recordings to her name and was called to take up a professorship for Vocal Studies at the Trossingen College of Music in 2021.