Paavo Järvi

Grammy award-winning Paavo Järvi begins his tenure as the seventh Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris in September 2010 with a performance of Sibelius’s Kullervo featuring the Estonian National Male Choir. He is also in his tenth and final season as Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and will leave behind him a legacy of extensive touring and a discography of sixteen CDs for Telarc, the most recent releases being Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 and Holst’s The Planets.

As Music Director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi has appeared with the orchestra in China, Taiwan and Japan and at major European Festivals such as the BBC Proms, the Rheingau Musik Festival and the Robeco Summer series at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. They are currently in the process of recording all of the Bruckner Symphonies for Sony, with Symphonies Nos. 7 and 9 already released. His most recent disc with the orchestra was Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 for Virgin Classics.

Paavo Järvi has been the Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2004 and has received the highest public and critical acclaim for their concerts and recordings of Beethoven’s Symphonies, all of which have now been released on Sony. He received the 2010 ECHO Klassik Conductor of the Year award for Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6, while Symphonies Nos. 3 and 8 won the prestigious annual Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for 2007. In 2009 Paavo Järvi recorded the Beethoven and Britten Violin Concertos for Decca with Janine Jansen as soloist. They have now performed the complete Beethoven Symphonies cycle at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, the Salzburg Festival and the Warsaw Easter Festival. As well as extensive tours of Europe including a performance at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, 2010 saw a tour to Japan following highly successful appearances in Canada (Lanaudière Festival), the USA (Mostly Mozart Festival) and the BBC Proms.

Since the very start of his career, Järvi has made it a priority to champion works by contemporary Estonian composers including Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Lepo Sumera and Eduard Tubin. His latest recording with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (of which he is Artistic Adviser) is the world premiere of Tüür’s Symphony No. 4 with Evelyn Glennie.

In addition to his regular duties, Paavo Järvi is in great demand as a guest conductor. He regularly performs with the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, the Chicago and Cleveland Symphony Orchestras, the NHK Symphony, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala. Recently the conductor has also appeared with the Vienna and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, the Tonhalle in Zurich, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra.

Born in Tallinn, Estonia, Paavo Järvi studied percussion and conducting at the Tallinn School of Music then, in 1980, moved to the USA where he continued his studies at the Curtis Institute of Music and at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute with Leonard Bernstein.

For further information please visit Paavo Järvi’s website: www.paavojarvi.com