Estonian-born Grammy winner Paavo Järvi is regarded as one of the most important conductors today, working in close partnership with the greatest international orchestras. He is the Music Director of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, since 2004 Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra. From the start of the 2022-23 concert season he has also been appointed Honorary Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

For his fourth season with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, he continued the Bruckner cycle while also completing his Mendelssohn cycle, together with their corresponding CD recordings. His further recordings include a live semi-staged production of Beethoven’s «Fidelio», as well as a new recorded edition of orchestral works by John Adams to celebrate the composer’s 75th birthday.

He rounds off each musical season with a week of concerts and masterclasses at the Pärnu Music Festival in Estonia, a festival that he and his father Neeme Järvi jointly founded in 2011. The success of the festival and its resident ensemble – the Estonian Festival Orchestra – has led to a number of highly prestigious invitations to bring them to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the BBC Proms and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Paavo Järvi is also much in demand as a guest conductor, maintaining close links with the world class orchestras he regularly leads. Further prizes and accolades include a Grammy Award in 2003 for cantatas by Sibelius; in 2015 «Artist of the Year» awarded by Gramophone Magazine (UK) and Diapason (France), as well as the Sibelius Medal; in 2019 «Conductor of the Year» (Opus-Klassik) and the Rheingau Music Prize; and most recently, the 2022 European Cultural Prize.