The Polish pianist Rafał Blechacz is celebrated worldwide for his profound, virtuoso interpretations. His career began in 2005 with an outstanding first prize at the 15th Warsaw Chopin Competition. He is also the winner of the 2014 Gilmore Artist Award, one of the most prestigious piano music prizes in the world. Rafał Blechacz regularly performs with the world’s major orchestras, including the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin, the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, as well as many others. He also gives solo recitals in the most famous concert halls from Berlin to New York and from Milan to Tokyo.

This sought-after pianist will open the 2024/25 season with Kent Nagano and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. He will also be performing with the SWR Symphonieorchester, the NDR Elbphilharmonieorchester, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo and the Kammerorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk, as well as touring Japan and China. As a chamber musician, the piano virtuoso will be focusing on his duo with violinist Bomsori Kim. Rafał Blechacz is an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist and his recordings have received numerous awards, including the Echo Klassik and the Diapason d’or. Blechacz’s latest recording of works by Frédéric Chopin was released in March 2023.

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.