Born in St. Petersburg in 1972, Arcadi Volodos began his musical training studying voice and conducting and did not begin serious training at the piano until 1987 at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He pursued his studies further at the Moscow Conservatory Galina Egiazarova, then in Paris and Madrid.

His New York debut in 1996 marked the beginning of a meteoric career. Volodos has performed throughout the world in recital with many of the most eminent orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He has played under such conductors as Lorin Maazel, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, among others, and regularly appears in acclaimed piano recitals at major concert halls around the world. The beginning of the 2013/2014 season sees concerts with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly in Leipzig, Vienna, London and Paris.

Arcadi Volodos’ boundless virtuosity along with his unique sense of phrasing, colour and poetry have made him a lyrical narrator of in-depth musical tales.

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‹.