The pianist Boris Giltburg performs regularly in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Bozar in Brussels, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Wiener Konzerthaus. This season, he is continuing his performances of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas at Wigmore Hall where he was recently appointed an ›Associate Artist‹, and at Flagey in Brussels. He is also Artist in Residence with the Dresdner Philharmoniker and artistic guest curator of Portland Piano International. Recent and forthcoming engagements include performances with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester, the hr-Sinfonieorchester, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the Warsaw Philharmonic. He has also worked with the Czech Philharmonic, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Kirill Petrenko, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Seoul Philharmonic.

Boris Giltburg is widely regarded as one of the leading interpreters of Rachmaninov and has been honoured with major awards for his solo recordings, including the Opus Klassik and the Diapason d’Or. He also received a Gramophone Award for Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2, which he recorded with the Pavel Haas Quartet, as well as a Diapason d’Or and the Choc de Classica for their recording of Brahms’s Piano Quintet. This winner of the 2013 Queen Elisabeth Competition was born in Moscow and grew up in Tel Aviv, where he studied with Arie Vardi.

The Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has served as Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2004. One of the many highlights of this long standing collaboration was the widely acclaimed Beethoven cycle, whose performances were celebrated by critics around the world and honoured with numerous awards, including the Echo Klassik for “Conductor of the Year.” The Beethoven project was followed by an intensive exploration of the symphonic works of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms; both cycles likewise received multiple distinctions. Since autumn 2021, the orchestra has turned its focus to Joseph Haydn’s twelve London Symphonies, followed in 2024 by an in depth engagement with the symphonies of Franz Schubert.

Since the 2019/20 season, Paavo Järvi has also served as Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. Starting with the 2028/29 season, Järvi will assume the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival, which he established in 2011. As a guest conductor, he regularly appears with leading orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, Paavo Järvi was named Artist of the Year by both Gramophone magazine (UK) and Diapason (France). This was followed in 2019 by the Opus Klassik award for Conductor of the Year. Further honours 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 recognition of his commitment to promoting the music of Jean Sibelius, he received the Sibelius Medal in 2015, and in 2012 he was awarded the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. For his dedication to Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013, and in 2024 he received the Bremen Senate Medal for Art and Science.

With his extreme skill and virtuosity as well as a willingness to transcend genre boundaries, Jeroen Berwaerts is outstanding in both the well-known standard repertoire, and as a pioneer of new works and exciting programming experiments. Jeroen Berwaerts’ open-mindedness and resplendent playing have brought him invitations to internationally renowned music festivals, including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Takefu International Music Festival in Japan and many more.

He has appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and the Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen under conductors such as Alan Gilbert or Yakov Kreizberg.

His recent concert highlights include the Dutch premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s second trumpet concerto with the Philharmonie Zuidnederland, as well as the Belgian premiere of Francesco Filidei’s ›Carnevale‹. His performances of HK Gruber’s virtuosic trumpet concerto ›Busking‹ at the First Hamburg International Music Festival and Bregenz Festival garnered high praise.

As well as his burgeoning trumpet career, Jeroen Berwaerts has completed jazz vocal studies at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent. He has developed several programmes with piano, strings, organ and brass ensemble in which he combines trumpet and voice as well as classical, jazz and other genres in a truly unique way. His latest release – ›Signals from Heaven‹, recorded with Salaputia Brass – includes music by Takemitsu, Monteverdi, Gabrieli, Gershwin and Ellington as well as American spirituals.