Born in Tokyo in 1998, pianist Mao Fujita’s innate musical sensitivity and natural artistry make him a rare and exceptional talent, equally at home with Mozart’s works as with the great Romantic repertoire. He works with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors and has won numerous competitions, including the silver medal at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 2019. Of his US debut at Carnegie Hall in January 2023,  ›The New York Times‹ wrote of Fujita: »As soon as his fingers touched the keys, waves of airy filigree emerged, beautifully shaped and perfected, in almost uninterrupted streams«.

In the 2025/26 season, Fujita will continue his impressive series of appearances at leading festivals and concert halls in Europe, America and Asia. This series includes a recital tour of North America and tours of Asia and Europe with the Filarmonica della Scala under Myung-Whun Chung, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Jaap van Zweden, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko and the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen under Paavo Järvi. Fujita is also in demand internationally as a chamber music partner, performing with Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Emanuel Ax, Kirill Gerstein, Antoine Tamestit, Kian Soltani and the Hagen Quartet, among others. Fujita is an exclusive artist with Sony Classical International where he recently released preludes by Chopin and Scriabin, as well as the world premiere recording of Akio Yashiro’s ›24 Preludes‹.

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.