Paavo Järvi returns to Berlin this week to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in 3 concerts (23, 24 and 25 May) with a programme of Bach, Berg and Bruckner.

The sold-out concert on 25 May will be broadcast live on the Digital Concert Hall platform.  Meanwhile 5 previous performances that Paavo Järvi conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic are now available to watch on the Digital Concert Hall Archive.

Paavo Järvi will be back with the Berlin Philharmonic again this October with a programme of Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Schumann, featuring Janine Jansen as soloist.

The Estonian Festival Orchestra has just returned from Japan where they made their debut tour – their fourth tour in less than two years. With sell-out concerts in Hamamatsu, Fukui, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, the orchestra was joined on stage by soloist, Midori – who herself made the journey to Estonia last summer to perform with the orchestra at home in Pärnu. And on Midori’s request, the public were invited to hear a conversation with Paavo and members of the orchestra introducing the Japanese audience to Estonian culture before each concert.

Japan’s leading classical music magazine, Ongaku no Tomo, featured Paavo on its front cover to celebrate the arrival of his orchestra in the country and the huge success of the tour resulted in immediate invitations to return in three years time. As always with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, the concerts were high on both energy and authenticity, performing repertoire that is specific to this ensemble – the music of the North – including works by Sibelius, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Estonia’s very own Arvo Pärt and Erik-Sven Tüür.

Paavo Järvi’s first season with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich will be devoted to his Nordic roots. Estonia, Russia, Finland, Latvia and Sweden are the countries which will be the principal musical destinations of the 2019/20 season which opens on 2 October with Sibelius’ Kullervo, featuring guest artists Johanna Rusanen (Soprano) Ville Rusanen (Baritone) and the Estonian National Choir.

The new occupant of the Creative Chair will be Estonian composer, Erkki-Sven Tüür, who this year celebrates his 60th birthday and the In Focus series will also feature the talents of Nordic artists, including appearances by Martin Fröst, Pekka Kuusisto and Ksenija Sidorova, both with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich under Järvi’s baton and in chamber music ensembles.

A major focus of the first season will be the complete symphonies of Tchaikovsky which Paavo and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich will perform and record live in concert. Having grown up under Soviet occupation in Tallinn, Russian music was a major part of the cultural landscape for Paavo in his youth. “Tchaikovsky was virtually a saint,” he commented. “There were several gurus who specified how he should be played.”

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Paavo Järvi are awarded the Rheingau Music Prize 2019. The award, initiated by the Rheingau Music Festival, will be presented on July 12 on the occasion of Paavo and the orchestra’s concert with Daniel Trifonov at this year’s festival. The prize of € 10,000 will be provided by the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts.

On announcing the prize the Rheingau Music Festival commented: “The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is a unique phenomenon in the cultural landscape: it fills concert halls all over the world, inspires audiences with its stirring style of music-making, organizes itself democratically and finances itself predominantly on its own. The orchestra was founded in 1980 by music students, and today it is a figurehead: for classical music, for the city of Bremen – but also for entrepreneurial spirit and social commitment. Paavo Järvi and Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen have made interpretation history with their groundbreaking projects on the symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms. In 2016 the ensemble was awarded the title “Orchestra of the Year” by Deutschlandfunk Kultur.”

Paavo Järvi has stepped in at the last minute to replace Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla for three concerts with the New York Philharmonic on 3, 4 and 5 January. The programme features Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with soloist Gautier Capuçon, Sibelius’ Lemminkäinen and the Maidens of the Island, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé Suite No.2

“Officially, Paavo Järvi’s tenure as Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich will not commence in less than a year” wrote the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. “But Järvi is already guesting in Zurich in the season 2018/19 with four programs, giving a foretaste of what he hopes to achieve in the future. That’s why the Estonian conductor’s first appearance last wednesday was eagerly awaited, with the character of a de facto debut. The concert hall in Tonhalle Maag was almost sold out, and the Tonhalle Orchestra played with the first set of members. And Järvi – as anticipated – fulfilled the ambitious expectations more than enough, indeed at the end of the concert he was euphorically celebrated by the Zurich audience.”

Praise for Paavo Järvi’s first concerts with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich this month were unanimous. Seen and Heard International commented “If this was the first day of his honeymoon with the orchestra, then married life will look rosy, if the cheering after the Mahler symphony was anything to go by … The performance – and the orchestra’s playing – was, in a word, sensational. At the end of the symphony, large sections of the audience (a full house) erupted; the orchestra seemed stunned. Järvi beamed. He could sense he too had made a wise choice … a Golden Age beckons.”

Peter Hagmann wrote “The members of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich have not performed so close to the edge of their seats for a long time … And now it is there, the fresh breeze. She has a very fresh effect, and she goes through the orchestra from A to Z – all the way to the administration – Without shyness, Järvi grabs the bull by the horns. He aims at the legacy that David Zinman has left behind. And he shows how things can be different – with Gustav Mahler and Ludwig van Beethoven … A new path is emerging for the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. Exciting how it will go on.”

And Bachtrack.com commented: “The famous Adagietto (of Mahler 5) wove the richest possible orchestral tapestry, and highlighted both a celestial harp and the slightly restrained pacing that fills the listener with the thrill of anticipation … the Estonian’s command of the huge configuration was superb, and his rapport with the group seemed as amenable as it was supportive. Expectations are always great on the occasion of a conductor’s new posting, as well they should be. The Zurich public and the Tonhalle’s audience look forward to the Järvi era.”

Following his current performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Paavo Järvi reunites with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich at the end of the month for a tour of Asia which includes concerts in Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei and Seoul.

Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s first recording in their complete Brahms Symphony cycle has won Germany’s Opus Klassik Award in the category “Symphonic Recording of the Year (music of the 19th century)”. The Opus Klassik Award is the new award for classical music in Germany (succeeding the former ECHO-Klassik) and the winning discs are selected by a jury of Germany recording industry experts. The ceremony takes place on Sunday 14 October at Konzerthaus Berlin and will be broadcast nationwide on ZDF TV at 22.15 (CET). Volume 2 of the Brahms cycle will be released on Sony’s RCA Red Seal label on 4 October.

For more information and tickets to the ceremony, visit www.opusklassik.de

Watch it on BBC MUSIC’s Youtube channel:

Arvo Pärt: Symphony No.3
Edvard Grieg: Piano Concert with Khatia Buniatishvili
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No.5
Lepo Sumera: Spring Fly