Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Mariss Jansons ranks among the outstanding podium personalities of our time. His orchestral work is recognized not only because of his lively touring activities but also because of television and radio broadcasts world-wide, also documented by a sizable number of recordings.

Born in 1943 in the Latvian capital of Riga as the son of conductor Arvid Jansons, he graduated with honors from the Leningrad Conservatory Studies in Vienna with Hans Swarowsky and in Salzburg with Herbert von Karajan followed. In 1971, Mariss Jansons emerged as a prize winner from the conducting competition of the Herbert von Karajan Foundation in Berlin. He was decisively influenced by the legendary Russian conductor Evgeny Mravinsky, who brought Mariss Jansons to the Leningrad Philharmonic, today’s St. Petersburg Philharmonic, as his assistant. Until 1999 Mariss Jansons was closely associated with this orchestra as regular conductor and led the orchestra during this period on tours world-wide. From 1979 to 2000 Mariss Jansons set standards as Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, which he shaped into a top international orchestra. Besides this he was Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1992 1997) and Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1997 2004).
Since 2003, Mariss Jansons serves as the Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester and Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, parallel to which, in the autumn of 2004, he assumed the post of Chief Conductor of the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest.

Mariss Jansons and the orchestra have made regular guest appearances in the most important musical capitals and music festivals of the world. In the autumn of 2005 Jansons and the orchestra undertook their first joint Japan-China tour and were singled out by the Japanese press for the “Best Concerts of the Season”. In 2006 and 2009, Mariss Jansons gave several triumphantly successful concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall, and in 2007, along with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, they gave a concert in the Vatican for Pope Benedict XVI. The Symphonieorchester under Mariss Jansons’s direction is annually invited to serve as the orchestra in residence at the Easter Festival in Lucerne.

A number of CD and DVD recordings thus far made by Mariss Jansons and the Symphonieorchester and Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks document his wide-ranging repertoire. In 2005, for example, he concluded his complete recording of the Shostakovich symphonies for EMI Classics, in which several different top orchestras were involved, and which was rounded off by the Symphonieorchester des BR. In February of 2005 the recording of the Symphony No. 13 was awarded a Grammy for the best orchestral presentation. The box with all the symphonies, released in the summer of 2006 also won a number of international prizes.
ECHO-Klassik named Mariss Jansons “Conductor of the Year” in 2007, and he was honored in 2008 for his recording of B?la Bart?k’s Concerto for Orchestra and A csod?latos mandarin (The Miraculous Mandarin), which ranked in the category “Best Symphonic Recording of the Year”. For the Seventh Symphony by Anton Bruckner, the Symphonieorchester under Jansons’s direction was named ECHO Klassik’s “Orchestra recording of the Year” in 2010.

Mariss Jansons places considerable significance on his work with young musicians. He has conducted the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra on its Europe wide tour and worked with the Attersee Institute Orchestra, with which he appeared at the Salzburg Festival. In Munich he gives regular concerts with various Bavarian youth orchestras and the Academy of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.

Mariss Jansons has been awarded a number of international prizes and accolades. He is an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna and the Royal Academy in London

For his work with the Oslo Philharmonic he received “Den Kongelig Norske Fortjenstorden 1994” (“The Royal Norwegian Order of Merit”). In 2003, Mariss Jansons received the Hans von B?low Medal from the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2004 he was honored by London’s Royal Philharmonic Society as “Conductor of the Year”, in 2006 he was declared “Artist of the Year” at MIDEM, the International Music Trade Fair in Cannes, and the conductor was awarded the “3 Stars” medal, the highest honor presented by the Republic of Latvia. In 2008, he received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Scholarship and Art, and in 2010 he received the Bavarian Order of Maximilian.
On January 1, 2012, Mariss Jansons will again assume the direction of the Vienna Philharmonic’s tradition-rich New Year’s Concert.

Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Long recognized as one of its finest exponents, it is with Korngold’s concerto that Shaham launches the 2015-16 season at the Berlin Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. Besides reprising John Williams’s concerto with St?phane Den?ve and the Boston Symphony, where he previously recorded the concerto under the composer’s direction, he performs Bach with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel; Brahms with the Orchestre de Paris; Tchaikovsky with the Orchestra del Teatro di San Carlo and the New World, Sioux City, and Nashville Symphonies; and Mendelssohn during a Montreal Symphony residency and on a European tour with the Singapore Symphony. Shaham’s long-term exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s” enters an eighth season with performances of Bart?k’s Second with the Chicago Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and the Kimmel Center, Barber with the Orchestre National de Lyon and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and Prokofiev’s Second on an extensive North American tour with The Knights to celebrate the release of Violin Concertos of the 1930s, Vol. 2. Issued on the violinist’s own Canary Classics label, this second installment pairs his recordings of Prokofiev with The Knights and Bart?k with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony. As well as undertaking a tour of European capitals with Sejong and a residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Shaham continues touring to London’s Wigmore Hall and key North American venues with accounts of Bach’s complete unaccompanied sonatas and partitas in a special multimedia collaboration with photographer and video artist David Michalek.

Last season, Shaham headlined the Seattle Symphony’s opening-night gala, before joining the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas for Prokofiev’s Second at Carnegie Hall and other stops on the orchestra’s 20th-anniversary tour. The Prokofiev was one of the works showcased in the “Violin Concertos of the 1930s” project, which also took him to the Philadelphia Orchestra for Berg and to the Berlin Radio Symphony and London Symphony Orchestra for Britten. Besides premiering David Bruce’s new concerto with the San Diego Symphony, the violinist’s orchestral highlights included Bach with the Sydney and Dallas Symphonies and Mendelssohn in Tokyo, Canada, Luxembourg, and with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles

Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. After Canary Classics released his interpretation of Bach’s complete solo sonatas and partitas on disc, Shaham gave unaccompanied Bach recitals at Chicago’s Symphony Center, L.A.’s Disney Hall, and other U.S. venues, in company with David Michalek.

The violinist already has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, including bestsellers that have ascended the charts in the U.S. and abroad. These recordings have earned multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. His recent recordings are issued on the Canary Classics label, which he founded in 2004. They comprise 1930s Violin Concertos (Vol. 1), recorded live with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, BBC Symphony, Staatskapelle Dresden, and Sejong; Haydn Violin Concertos and Mendelssohn’s Octet with the Sejong Soloists; Sarasate: Virtuoso Violin Works with Adele Anthony, Akira Eguchi, and the Orquesta Sinf?nica de Castilla y Le?n; Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and David Zinman; The Butterfly Lovers and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Singapore Symphony; Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A with Yefim Bronfman and cellist Truls Mork; The Prokofiev Album and Mozart in Paris, both with his sister, pianist Orli Shaham; The Faur? Album with Akira Eguchi and cellist Brinton Smith; and Nigunim: Hebrew Melodies, also recorded with Orli Shaham, which features the world premiere recording of a sonata written for the violinist by Avner Dorman. Dorman’s sonata is one of several new works commissioned for the violinist, who has also premiered and championed pieces by composers including William Bolcom, David Bruce, Julian Milone, and Bright Sheng.

Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of seven, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, while studying with Haim Taub in Jerusalem, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic. That same year he began his studies with Dorothy DeLay and Jens Ellermann at Aspen. In 1982, after taking first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition, he became a scholarship student at Juilliard, where he worked with DeLay and Hyo Kang. He also studied at Columbia University.

Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America, which cited the “special kind of humanism” with which his performances are imbued. He plays the 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.

Chief conductor of the Chor and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Mariss Jansons ranks among the most outstanding podium personalities of our time. His orchestral accomplishments are not only recognized world wide by his vigorous concert and touring activities along with television and radio broadcasts but also documented on a sizable number of recordings.

Mariss Jansons has been Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Bavarian Radio Chorus since the 2003/2004 concert season, following Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubel?k, Sir Colin Davis and Lorin Maazel as the fifth Chief Conductor of these two renowned Bavarian Broadcasting ensembles. In 2004 Mariss Jansons additionally assumed the position of Chief Conductor of the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam.

Born in 1943 in the Latvian capital of Riga, he grew up in the Soviet Union as the son of conductor Arvid Jansons, studying violin, viola and piano and completing his musical education in conducting with high honors at the Leningrad Conservatory. Further studies followed with Hans Swarovsky in Vienna and Herbert von Karajan in Salzburg. In 1971 Mariss Jansons won the Conducting Competition sponsored by the Karajan Foundation in Berlin. His work was also significantly influenced by the legendary Russian conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky, who engaged Mariss Jansons as his assistant at the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1972. Over the succeeding years, Mariss Jansons remained closely linked with this orchestra, today’s St. Petersburg Philharmonic, as a regular conductor until 1999 as well as conducting the orchestra during that period on tours throughout the world.

Besides his conducting assignments, Mariss Jansons also served for almost thirty years, from 1971 to 2000, as professor of conducting at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He is the recipient of Honorary Doctorates from the Music Academies in Oslo and Riga.

From 1979 to 2000, Mariss Jansons set standards as Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, which he shaped into an international top orchestra. Besides this, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1992-1997) and Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1997-2004). In addition, he has successfully collaborated with every major orchestra in the world ? among others the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle-Orchester in Zurich and the Dresden Staatskapelle. High on the list here are the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. Jansons has successfully conducted these orchestras regularly in Vienna and Berlin, as well as on tour throughout Europe, the United States and Japan.
As Chief Conductor, Mariss Jansons has given a sizable number of concerts with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks at home and abroad, enthusiastically cheered by audiences and highly praised by the critics. Jansons and the orchestra have made guest appearances in the major musical capitals of Europe including the Proms in London, the Lucerne Festival, in Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, Zurich, Brussels and Rome. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Mariss Jansons’s direction are invited every year to serve as orchestra in residence at the Easter Festival in Lucerne. In the autumn of 2005 Jansons and orchestra undertook their first tour to Japan and China and received the prize “Best Concerts of the Season” from the Japanese press. In 2006 Mariss Jansons and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks gave several enthusiastically received concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall. An extensive concert tour took the musicians back to Japan in the autumn of 2007, with three concerts in Suntory Hall in Tokyo as well as Taipeh, to mention just two eminent sites.

Mariss Jansons’s work with young musicians has a special significance for him. He has conducted the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra on a European tour and worked with the Attersee Institute Orchestra, with which he appeared at the Salzburg Festival. In Munich he gives regular concerts with various Bavarian Youth Orchestras and the Academy of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks.
Mariss Jansons is Artistic Director of the Masterprize Composing Competition in London.

Mariss Jansons’s discography includes recordings for EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, SONY, BMG, Chandos and Simax featuring works by Beethoven, Brahms, Berlioz, Bart?k, Britten, Dukas, Dvo??k, Grieg, Henze, Honegger, Mahler, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Respighi, Saint-Sa?ns, Shchedrin, Shostakovich, Sch?nberg, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Webern and Weill. Many of his recordings have received prestigious international prizes. The first huge success was his Tchaikovsky cycle with the Oslo Philharmonic for Chandos, a reference recording, which enjoys cult status today. The recording of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony with the Leningrad Philharmonic won the 1989 Edison Prize.
SONY BMG has thus far released five CD’s under the title “Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Live” featuring works by Thaikovsky (Fourth and Sixth Symphony, First Piano Concerto), Sch?nberg (“Verkl?rte Nacht”), Webern (“Im Sommerwind”), Stravinsky (“Firebird Suite”), Shchedrin (Fifth Piano Concerto), Bart?k (Concerto for Orchestra, The Miraculous Mandarin] Concert Suite) and Ravel (Suite no. 2 from “Daphnis et Chlo?”).

In 2006 EMI Classics released the complete recording of all Shostakovich Symphonies under the direction of Mariss Jansons, in which a number of major orchestras participated, and which was completed by the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. This album received a number of awards, among them the annual prize from the German recording critics, the annual prize from Le Monde de la Musique, as well as prizes for the “Recording of the Year” and the “Best Symphonic Recording” from the 2007 MIDEM in Cannes. The recording of Symphony No. 13 with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks was awarded, among other accolades, a Grammy in the category “Best Orchestral Performance”.

Mariss Jansons has received a large number of international prizes and honors. He is an Honorary Member of the Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna as well as an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. For his devoted service to the Oslo Philharmonic, he received the Royal Norwegian “Commander with Star” Order of Merit, the highest award this nation confers on a foreigner, as well as that country’s Anders Jahre Prize. In 2003 Jansons was awarded the Hans von B?low Medal of the Berlin Philharmonic, and in 2004 the Royal Philharmonic Society in London honored him with the title “Conductor of the Year”. In 2006 he was declared “Artist of the Year” at the MIDEM International Music Trade Fair., besides which he received the “Three Stars” medal, the highest honor awarded by the Republic of Latvia. In 2007 the City of Vienna awarded him its Gold Medal. The same year Mariss Jansons also received the Bavarian Order of Merit, the European Conducting Prize from the European Cultural Foundation “Pro Europa” as well as being named “Conductor of the Year” by ECHO KLASSIK. In 2009, Mariss Jansons was awarded the ‘Austrian Medal of Honor for Science and Art’
On January 1, 2006, Mariss Jansons first conducted the Vienna Philharmonic’s tradition-rich New Year’s Concert, which was telecast by 60 stations on every continent and seen by more than fifty million televiewers.
In 2008, an international ranking in the music magazine ‘Gramophone’ placed the two orchestras led by Mariss Jansons in Amsterdam and Munich among the ten best ensembles in the world.

Soon after being founded by Eugen Jochum in 1949, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks developed into an internationally renowned orchestra, its fame ongoingly expanded and fortified by its intensive touring activities. The orchestra owes its extraordinarily wide repertoire and sound spectrum to the program preferences of its previous chief conductors as well as to the great flexibility and solid stylistic security of each individual musician.

Fostering new music has an especially long tradition at the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks with appearances in conjunction with the musica viva series, founded in 1945 by Karl Amadeus Hartmann, as one of the orchestra’s main assignments right from the start. At these concerts, Munich audiences have witnessed legendary performances of contemporary works at which the composers themselves generally stood on the podium of the orchestra. These included Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Paul Hindemith, Pierre Boulez, as well as, more recently, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, Luciano Berio and Peter E?tv?s.

Over the past few years, the Symphonieorchester has also pursued new approaches to early music and now collaborates regularly with such experts in historical performance practice as Thomas Hengelbrock, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Ton Koopman.

Many renowned guest conductors, such as Clemens Krauss, Erich and Carlos Kleiber, Charles Munch, Ferenc Fricsay, Otto Klemperer, Karl B?hm, G?nter Wand, Sir Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Kurt Sanderling and Wolfgang Sawallisch have left indelible imprints on the Symphonieorchester in the past. Today Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Franz Welser-M?st number amongst the significant partners who regularly mount the podium in Munich. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks was also the only German orchestra with which Leonard Bernstein regularly collaborated for many years. An especially close artistic friendship came about, to which the Munich audience owes incomparable concert experiences, such as the legendary concert performance of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” in 1981. In 1989 Bernstein, the Chor and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks altered the text of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” from “Freude” (“joy”) to “Freiheit” (“freedom”) when they performed Beethoven’s 9th Symphony to mark the fall of the Wall between East and West Berlin.

Besides the many performances and recordings in Munich and other cities in the station’s broadcast range, extensive concert tours are today central components in the everyday life of the orchestra. Tours have taken the orchestra to virtually every European country, to Asia as well as to North and South America. It makes regular appearances in New York’s Carnegie Hall and in the renowned concert halls in Japan’s musical capitals. Among the special appearances outside Germany during the 2008/2009 are concerts in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, at the Royal Festival Hall in London, at the Th??tre des Champs-?lys?es in Paris, an additional American and Eastern European tour with performances in Zagreb, Sofia, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Since 2004, the Symphonieorchester under the direction of its current Chief Conductor, Mariss Jansons, is additionally the orchestra in residence at the Easter Festival in Lucerne.

A further special feature is the encouragement of up-and-coming young musicians. In conjunction with the ARD International Music Competition, the Symphonieorchester accompanies young musicians both in the final rounds as well as in the symphonic closing concert featuring the prize winners. Since October of 2001 the Academy of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks has been doing valuable educational work by preparing young musicians for their later careers and thus building a solid bridge between education and professional activity. Beyond this, the Symphonieorchester maintains an encouragement program for young people with many activities designed toward the worthy goal of bringing the younger generation closer together with classical music.

The history of the Symphonieorchester is closely intertwined with the names of its previous chief conductors, who were always concurrently chief conductors of the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks. The founder, Eugen Jochum, led the orchestra for eleven years (from 1949 to 1960.) He built the orchestra completely and established it´s world-wide reputation on its initial foreign tours. Munich audiences have him to thank for incomparable interpretations of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. Besides Bruckner Eugen Jochum devoted special attention to the performance of sacred music, and also made regular appearances on the podium of musica viva.

Rafael Kubel?k, who headed the orchestra for eighteen years (1961 to 1979), expanded the repertoire to include works by Slavic composers like Smetana, Jan??ek and Dvo??k, as well as spearheading the cause of 20th century composers such as Karl Amadeus Hartmann and conducting the first Mahler cycle with a German orchestra, which was then recorded. His impulsive, emotion-laden approach to music won the hearts of all the musicians and made the Kubel?k era one of the most fruitful ones in the history of the ensemble.

With Sir Colin Davis, the orchestra gained a recognized Berlioz specialist as chief conductor (1983 to 1992), who likewise proved an excellent advocate for the Viennese Classical Era as well as the works of English composers, especially Edward Elgar, Michael Tippett and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

From 1993 t0 2002 Lorin Maazel led the Symphonieorchester. He set new styles of programming by performing cycles of symphonic works by Beethoven (1995 and 2000), Brahms (1998), Bruckner (1999) and Schubert (2001). He took his leave of his orchestra with a Mahler cycle in 2002.

A new and mutually pleasurable chapter in the history of the Symphonieorchester began in October of 2003 when the acknowledged favorite candidate of all the musicians, Mariss Jansons, assumed his post as the new Chief Conductor of the Chor and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. In no time, he succeeded in creating an atmosphere of the highest artistic standards and a close emotional tie with the orchestra, which also formed the key to his extraordinary success. Mariss Jansons conducts a wide repertoire, covering the classical and romantic eras and continuing on to 20th century music and works by contemporary composers. He regularly earns enthusiastic reviews for his concerts in Munich as well as the numerous guest appearances in virtually all the major European musical capitals. With a goodly number of CD releases, among others a series of live recordings of Munich concerts, Mariss Jansons continues to expand the orchestra’s vast discography. In completion of his complete recording of Shostakovich symphonies, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks contributed Symphonies No. 2, 3, 4. 12, 13 and 14. The recording of the 13th Symphony won the Grammy for “Best Orchestral Performance” in 2006. The complete recording was awarded the German Recording Critics’ Prize for the “Recording of the Year 2006”.

Since September of 2009, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks has been releasing CD’s and DVD’s on Bavarian Broadcasting’s own label, “BR-Klassik”. Releases to date include, among others, the 7th Symphony by Gustav Mahler, the 7th Symphony by Anton Bruckner and the “Harmony Mass” by Franz Joseph Haydn (also on DVD).

In a number of different orchestra rankings, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks has numbered among the top ten orchestras in the world (2006 Le Monde de la Musique, Paris; 2008 Record Geijutsu, Tokyo, and “Gramophone”, London.)