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Paavo Järvi

conductor

About this Artist

Grammy Award-winning Estonian conductor Paavo Järvi is widely recognized as one of today’s most eminent conductors, enjoying close partnerships with the finest orchestras around the world. He serves as Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, as the long-standing Artistic Director of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2004, and as both the founder and the Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra. 

Highlights of Järvi’s sixth season as Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich include performances of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 1 and Mahler’s symphonies Nos. 1 and 7, as well as Archora by Anna Thorvaldsdottir and John Adams’ piano concerto After the Fall with Víkingur Ólafsson. Further highlights include a tour of Spain in October and guest performances in Hamburg, Paris, Frankfurt, and Cologne in March. The season closes with a new biannual summer festival called tonhalleAIR, in which Järvi leads programs with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet as well as the student orchestra of the Musikschule Konservatorium Zürich. Alpha Classics released Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 in September 2024, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth, to be followed this spring by Mahler Symphony No. 5, the first release in a forthcoming complete cycle 

The year 2024 celebrates Järvi’s 20th anniversary as Artistic Director of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, recently voted Orchestra of the Year by both Gramophone in the UK and Opus Klassik in Germany. Together, Järvi and the orchestra have performed and recorded benchmark performances of the complete orchestral works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms. Highlights in the 2024/25 season include extensive tours throughout Japan, South Korea, and Europe and the release of Volume 2 of the Haydn London Symphonies project on RCA Red Seal. 

Each season concludes with the two-week Pärnu Music Festival in Estonia, which Järvi founded in 2011. The success of the Festival and its resident ensemble—the Estonian Festival Orchestra—has led to high-profile tours across Asia and Europe. In spring 2024, Alpha Classics released the Estonian Festival Orchestra’s fifth album, Ship of Fools, featuring premieres of three new orchestral works by leading Estonian composer Jüri Reinvere. 

In addition to his permanent positions, Järvi is in demand as a guest conductor, regularly appearing with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philharmonia, and the New York Philharmonic. This season, he also conducts the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. He also enjoys close relationships with many of the orchestras of which he was previously Music Director, including Orchestre de Paris, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, and NHK Symphony Orchestra.  

In 2024, Järvi and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich received an International Classical Music Award for their recording of the Bruckner Symphony No. 8 on Alpha Classics. With the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, he won both the 2024 Opus Klassik and the 2023 Gramophone Orchestra of the Year award, as well as the 2019 Rheingau Music Prize and Opus Klassik Conductor of the Year. Other prizes and honors include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’ Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Gramophone and Diapason Artist of the Year (2015), and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2015, Järvi was presented with the Sibelius Medal in recognition of his work in bringing the Finnish composer’s music to a wider public, and in 2012 he received the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. As a dedicated supporter of Estonian culture, Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013.