Born in Latvia and trained in Russia, Misha Maisky is one of the world’s leading cellists and has performed in the great concert halls of London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, New York and Tokyo, as well as being a welcome guest at international festivals. He has performed with almost all of the greatest conductors from Leonard Bernstein to Gustavo Dudamel. As a chamber musician, this cellist continues to perform with outstanding musicians such as Martha Argerich, Janine Jansen and Lang Lang.

One particular highlight of his concert activities to date was without doubt the year 2000. Misha Maisky marked the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s death that year with a worldwide concert marathon in excess of 100 performances in which he performed Bach’s solo suites for cello. As an exclusive artist for ›Deutsche Grammophon‹, Maisky has made 44 recordings spanning over 30 years, including with prominent orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and many others. This exceptional cellist, who has chosen to make his home in Belgium, sees himself as a citizen of the world. In the year of his 75th birthday, Maisky looks back on his 50-year stage career in the west.

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‹.