Born in 1989, the Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva has not only won over an international audience but the critics also rave about her »angelic« voice (The New York Times), her »pure tone« (Opernwelt) and her »immaculate technique« (The Guardian).  She began piano and singing lessons aged only five and later studied at the famous Moscow Conservatory. She completed her studies at the Guildhall School in London. This singer won first prize at the Paris Opera Competition in 2009, making her the youngest winner in the competition’s history. Her appearance with Rossini’s ›Fra il Padre‹ at the Classical Brit Awards in London’s Royal Albert Hall was also a sensation. The following year, the journal Opernwelt named her ›Young Artist of the Year‹.

From 2012, this young soprano appeared for three consecutive seasons as Asteria alongside Plácido Domingo und Bejun Mehta in Handel’s ›Temerlano‹ at the Salzburg Festival. In recent years, Julia Lezhneva has also toured in Australia and has given concerts in Lausanne, Toulouse, St Petersburg, Madrid, Lucerne, in the Konzerthaus Berlin and in the Berlin Philharmonie.  She also gave her debut in the Gewandhaus Leipzig with Herbert Blomstedt. Julia Lezhneva is the 2019 ›Artist in Residence‹ at the Kissinger Summer, where she first appeared on stage with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen. Further debuts of her 2019/20 season will be concerts with Adam Fischer and the Berlin Philharmonic in October and at the Musikverein in Vienna in February 2020.

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.