Applications are now open for the five day conducting course in Tallinn with Paavo Järvi and Arkady Leytush which takes place from 7 – 11 March

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At the 54th RECORD ACADEMY AWARD in Tokyo today, Paavo Järvi was announced as the recipient of two prestigious prizes:  The Complete Nielsen Symphonies recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony was voted “Gand Prix (Silver Prize): Best Symphony Recording” and his second CD release as Chief Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra featuring Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote, Till Eulenspiegel & Der Rosenkavalier Suite was voted “Best Orchestral Recording”. Both releases appear on the RCA Red Seal label of Sony Music.

These two recordings were particularly special projects for Paavo Järvi.  The Nielsen Cycle was performed and recorded over several years in Frankfurt during his time as Principal Conductor (2006 – 2013). As Paavo commented, “Carl Nielsen’s symphonies are rarely performed and even more rarely recorded so it was an important opportunity to bring a new audience to this great music. That audiences not only throughout Europe but also in Japan have come to appreciate these less known works has been truly uplifting.”

Of his recording project with the NHK Symphony Orchestra Paavo said “For our recording of Strauss to be chosen as the best recording in the orchestral category is particularly momentous as it is a recognition of our collaboration together as conductor and orchestra.  When I was thinking about this recording project, it brought to mind the NHK Symphony Orchestra’s great tradition, its famous sound, and the conductors who have had a deep influence on it.  It is well-known that this orchestra has a very German character because of the long performance tradition with some of the greatest German and Austrian conductors … Listening to our Strauss recording, I can say without any hesitation, that the result has even exceeded my expectations. I am so impressed with the tightly knit ensemble playing of the orchestra:  all the musicians are very detail oriented and the result is very polished and well-worked out.  What also made me personally very happy was, along with this high level of achievement and deep affinity for the music, the orchestra’s openness to suggestions and discussion. They were ready for and accepting of ideas that they might not have tried before, and we immediately became a good team.”

The RECORD ACADEMY AWARD is organized by RECORD GEIJUTSU Magazine (literally, “The Art of Record” in Japanese), published by the ONGAKU-NO-TOMO Company (literally “Friends of Music” in Japanese) and is given annually to the best classical music discs in 15 different genres/categories by the vote of the selection committee comprising Japanese classical music critics and journalists. The Award was created in 1963 and is regarded as one of the most authoritative in the world of classical music.

Bachtrack.com interviews Paavo Järvi about his work with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and their upcoming European tour.

“Where is home for Paavo Järvi? The life of an international conductor consists of airports and hotel-hopping and Järvi’s passport is more well-travelled than most. He has just opened his second season as Chief Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra helping to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Suntory Hall, so he spends more time in Tokyo than anywhere else. “In Japan, you never go anywhere for a day!” he chortles. He is also Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. This season sees extensive tours with both orchestras, so his suitcase will be put to good use, but he still considers his native Estonia his home base, returning each summer for the Pärnu Festival he founded in 2010 with his father, the distinguished conductor, Neeme Järvi. We met for lunch in Notting Hill during a brief London stopover.”

The NHK Symphony Orchestra has announced today (6 October) that they will extend its contract with Paavo Järvi as Chief Conductor for an additional 3 years, until August 2021.

The NHKSO Chairman, Tamaki Imai commented “Since assuming the position of Chief Conductor in September 2015, Paavo Järvi has been actively presenting concerts with unique programs consisting of not only works by Beethoven, Bruckner and R. Strauss but also contemporary works, in which he is also well versed. In the special concert of Mahler Symphony No.8 Sinfonie der Tausend held this September to celebrate the Orchestra’s 90th anniversary, he captured the hearts of the audience with his refined conducting, combining both bolts of expression and attention to the most minute details, leaving a strong impression on the audience. He will be leading the Orchestra’s European concert tour which will take place in February / March, 2017. We believe that through the forthcoming European tour and a variety of other planned projects including CD recordings, he will further boost the NHK Symphony Orchestra’s reputation both at home and abroad. We hope the NHK Symphony Orchestra and Paavo Järvi will attract and delight more and more music lovers not only through live concerts but through television and radio as well.”

Paavo Järvi commented: “I have enjoyed my first season with the NHK Symphony Orchestra immensely and am delighted to extend the contract knowing that I will have the opportunity to work with these fine musicians over an extended period of time. We have much to look forward to in the upcoming year including both our first European tour in Spring 2017 and our first CD release with a focus on the orchestra works of Richard Strauss. This season is especially important as the orchestra celebrates its 90th birthday and tonight we celebrate an additional birthday by having the honour to perform as a part of Suntory Hall’s 30th anniversary celebrations here in Tokyo.”

Following last week’s performance at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York, the Huffington Post must have written what is every artist’s dream review:

“At the close of Friday night’s Mostly Mozart concert in Geffen Hall, Paavo Järvi and the Festival Orchestra brought down the house with Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony—and how many times do you get to say that of anyone these days? You might think that everything that could be done with this piece had already been done a thousand times over, but you would be wrong.

“Without reaching or pulling anything out of shape, Järvi took a piece that’s usually programmed as a familiar makeweight and clattered through in a quaintly calisthenic manner (“Well, it’s not the Fifth, you know.”), and played it as if it were bran-new, fresh as paint, and thrillingly important. Tempi were perfectly judged: a rocket-ride of a first movement, erupting out of a truly mysterious introduction; a real, singing Adagio, with heart-stopping rubato; a zingy scherzo-menuet, torquing down perfectly to a floaty, sly trio; and a lightning-quick, hilarious finale with a mock-breakdown just before the end that got a spontaneous Chris Matthews-style shout of laughter from somewhere audience-left. (If Järvi ever gets tired of the conducting game, he’s got a great career as a comedian ahead of him.) Counterpoint was brought to the fore and brilliantly played. The syncopations in the first and third movements—usually slammed so hard that they confuse the beat rather than pointing it—were perfectly controlled, played for wit and winkingly varied each time around. And you could hear where this piece sat in its time, combining Haydn’s punch and vigor with Mozart’s dash and sheen, while opening a door not only to many of Beethoven’s most important later developments, but to Schubert and Rossini as well.

“And let’s not waste words about the performance: it was magnificent in virtually every way. Järvi is musical down to his toes, and watching him work is almost as much fun as hearing the result. The Festival Orchestra, which is on a roll this year, played beautifully, even for them. It is hard to believe that a group so cohesive, so attuned within itself, so united in its ensemble and so eloquent in its expression, only works together for—what?—six weeks out of the year. Järvi gave out solo and sectional bows all around, and the orchestra, which plainly adores him, insisted that he take one, too—and a good long one, at that. Richly deserved. Bravo, one and all.”

theartsdesk.com: Where would you go to hear the most electrifying and collegial orchestral playing in the world? It used to be Lucerne while Claudio Abbado was alive. Now that the Lucerne Festival Orchestra has become like any classy superband, the answer is Pärnu in the south of Estonia.

It’s a modest town of nearly 40,000 inhabitants, but its numbers treble in the summer, with visitors flocking to the eight-mile, south-facing white sand beach and the wooden villas in beautiful parkland (David Oistrakh and Shostakovich travelled westwards to Pärnu for their summer holidays). It also boasts a 900-seater concert hall, its 2002 inauguration having much to do with the championship of Estonia’s musical royal family, the Järvis.

… The jewel in the Pärnu festival crown is the heady mix of top western and Estonian players in what after five years has now become the Estonian Festival Orchestra. Is the Lucerne parallel far-fetched? Not when you consider the calibre of the instrumentalists … This is a string sound you’d go a long way to find …

Yet the highlight and denouement was always going to be Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony … I have never, anywhere, heard an orchestral unison that bore through the body like this one at the start. Climaxes raised the roof, but precisely; the maverick structure whereby two far from light scherzos follow one long slow movement struck home.

Read David Nice’s full review at theartsdesk.com

WATCH: PAAVO JÄRVI – ESTONIA’S “LUCKY MAN”  &  MASTER CLASS AT THE JÄRVI ACADEMY

“Being by the shores of the Baltic Sea is special in itself … Such delights are brought together each summer in Pärnu, Estonia’s cultural capital. Thanks to its music festival created in 2010 by its famous conductor Paavo Järvi together with his family; different generations united by the same passion. Pärnu has always been a crossroads for artists and musicians; a renowned seaside resort in the past, today back to its former glory, it boasts picturesque dachas and listed sights, such as the Ammende Villa, a Liberty building where “Musica” had the chance to meet Paavo Järvi.”

Reviewing the Pärnu Music Festival which ended with standing ovations on Sunday night,  the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes today “With the Pärnu Music Festival Paavo Järvi creates competiton for Europe and, from 2017, he will start to export a part of it. This is bound to cause a stir on the European festival scene.”

The festival, which Paavo Järvi created six years ago in the idyllic old fashioned seaside resort of Pärnu on the Baltic Sea, is quickly drawing the attention of journalists overseas. The BBC Music Magazine wrote “Pärnu, Estonia’s summer capital, is tucked within a huge natural harbour on the Baltic country’s southern coast. Mysteriously unknown to British holiday-makers but a firm favourite with the Finns (and, once upon a time, violinist David Oistrakh and composer Dmitri Shostakovich), the city boasts pristine white beaches with a gloriously safe, swimmable patch of sea, a delightful mix of old and new architecture, lush wooded spaces, superb restaurants and more spas than you could shake a stick at. Oh, and a truly wonderful music festival that’s starting at last to make a name for itself outside Estonia.”

For Paavo, the Pärnu Music Festival is not just another festival. Having emigrated with his family aged 18 to the States, it is the chance to return to his roots, to showcase the culture and beauty of his country and to nurture the next generation of musicians.  And it is here that he has created the Estonian Festival Orchestra, uniting the best of Estonian musicians with colleagues from around the world which, according to The Arts Desk “… begs comparison with the elasticity of Abbado’s concerts with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which is as good as it can get.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung adds “Järvi could go into open competition with Lucerne and Verbier”.

The next Pärnu Music Festival will take place in August 2017 and will be followed by Paavo Järvi and the Estonian Festival Orchestra’s first performances abroad at festivals around the Baltic coast. In 2018 – the year in which Estonia celebrates 100 years of independence – the Estonian Festival Orchestra will spread it’s wings yet further with performances across Europe.

Photo: Kaupo Kikkas

As the 2015 / 16 concert season draws to an end so does Paavo Järvi’s highly successful tenure as Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, a position he has held since 2010/11. His final concert in the Philharmonie will be on 18th June when he conducts Mahler Symphony no.3 featuring Michelle de Young as soloist.

The orchestra has just returned from a Swiss tour, taking in Geneva, Zurich, Lucerne and Bern, and other highlights of the past season include a hugely successful European tour in November 2015 which received the following reviews:

“It’s Paavo Järvi’s last season as chief conductor of the Orchestre de Paris and on Saturday they performed together at the Vienna Konzerthaus. Taking this performance as a yardstick, these five years together must have been a very fruitful collaboration: one rarely experiences such an immediate connection between orchestra and conductor, such an extraordinarily attentive presence on both sides so that with economical means an understanding of the most subtle shades is possible.”