Born into a musical family with Korean roots, Clara-Jumi Kang was the youngest student ever to have attended the Mannheim College of Music, at only four years of age. She continued her studies with Zakhar Bron at Lübeck College of Music and, at only seven years old, obtained a full scholarship at the New York Julliard School. She completed her studies at Munich College of Music. Aged only five, she gave her debut with the Hamburg Symphoniker and went on to perform with such renowned orchestras as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Köln Kammerorchester. In 2012, Clara-Jumi Kang was named by the Korean newspaper ›Dong-A Times‹ as one of the top 100 most promising and influential Koreans.

Her most recent highlights include her debut at the London Proms with conductor Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, as well as performances with the Gürzenich Orchester and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. As a passionate chamber musician, this violinist is also a member of the ›Spectrum Concerts‹ series at the Philharmonie in Berlin. Most recently, she has been the subject of great critical acclaim for her recording of Beethoven’s violin sonatas with the pianist Sunwook Kim and has also been nominated for the Opus Klassik 2022 award. Clara-Jumi Kang’s concerts in South Korea with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen are her debut with this orchestra.

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 was the Beethoven cycle, acclaimed worldwide by audiences and critics alike, 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. From autumn 2021, the focus was on Joseph Haydn’s twelve London symphonies, and since 2024, an intensive exploration of Franz Schubert’s symphonies.

Järvi has been Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich since the start of the 2019/20 season. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival. From the 2028/29 season, Järvi will take up the post of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He also regularly appears as a guest conductor 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, 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.