Soon after its founding by Eugen Jochum in 1949, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) developed into an internationally renowned orchestra. Its fame has grown through the leadership of its chief conductors, who have included Rafael Kubelík, Sir Colin Davis, and Lorin Maazel. Mariss Jansons has been chief conductor since 2003.

In addition to a repertoire of classical and romantic oeuvres, the orchestra has a tradition of championing contemporary works, particularly in conjunction with Munich’s Musica Viva series, founded 1945 by Karl Amadeus Hartmann. From the start, the BRSO has fostered contemporary works by composers like Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel, Luciano Berio, and Péter Eötvös.

The orchestra’s artistic profile has been shaped by many renowned guest conductors who have included Carlos Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Georg Solti, and Carlo Maria Giulini. More recently, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, and Andris Nelsons have regularly led the orchestra.

The BRSO gives special attention to the encouragement of young musicians. The orchestra collaborates with the ARD International Music Competition, accompanying young musicians in the final rounds as well as the closing concert that features the prizewinners. Since October 2001, the Orchestra Academy of the BRSO has prepared young musicians for their careers, building a bridge between education and professional activity.

In addition to regular performances in Germany, concert tours have taken the BRSO to virtually every European country, as well as Asia and the Americas. In recent surveys of international music critics, the BRSO has been counted among the top 10 orchestras in the world. Most recently, the orchestra’s concerts with Zubin Mehta in Japan in November 2018 were ranked first by Japanese music critics on a list of the best concerts of the year.

With a great number of album releases on major labels and on Bavarian Broadcasting’s own label, BR-KLASSIK, the BRSO regularly receives national and international awards.

For more information, visit br-so.de.

Mariss Jansons is considered one of the most outstanding conductors of our time. The son of conductor Arvīds Jansons, he studied at the Leningrad Conservatory, in Vienna under Hans Swarowsky, and in Salzburg under Herbert von Karajan. In 1971, Yevgeny Mravinsky made Mr. Jansons his assistant with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, where he stayed on as a regular conductor until 1999.

Mr. Jansons has served as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic (1979–2000), principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1992–1997), and music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1997–2004). He works regularly with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 2016 conducted the famous New Year’s Concert in Vienna for the third time. Mr. Jansons has been chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus since 2003. From 2004 to 2015, he also assumed the post of chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has appeared with the latter two ensembles in virtually every musical capital in the world. His numerous CD and DVD recordings with both orchestras have garnered many international prizes.

Mr. Janson’s list of accolades is long and mirrors his many achievements. He was honored with ECHO Klassik awards for Conductor of the Year in 2007 and 2011, and received the renowned Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2013. He has also received the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, Latvian Medal of the Order of the Three Stars, German Federal Cross of Merit, Knighthood of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, and French Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.

Mr. Jansons was honored in 2015 with Latvia’s Great Music Award for lifetime achievement. In 2017, he became the 104th winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal. Both the Berliner Philharmoniker and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra granted him honorary membership in 2018. That same year, he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the Salzburg Festival’s Festival Brooch with rubies, followed by the Herbert von Karajan Prize of the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2019. In October 2019, he received the Opus Klassik Award for lifetime achievement.

Pianist Rudolf Buchbinder is one of the most renowned artists of our time. He plays with an unparalleled combination of spirit, spontaneity, and the authority that comes from a career that spans more than 60 years.

Mr. Buchbinder’s renditions of works by Beethoven are considered exemplary. He has performed the cycle of 32 piano sonatas more than 50 times around the world and has contributed to the performance history of these works across decades. He was the first pianist to play the complete Beethoven sonatas during a single season of the Salzburg Festival; the cycle was recorded live and is available on DVD.

In the 2019–2020 season, the Vienna Musikverein has invited Mr. Buchbinder to perform all five Beethoven piano concertos with five different world-class orchestras and conductors in a specially edited cycle—a first in the concert hall’s 150-year history. His partners for this exceptional project are the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Andris Nelsons; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Riccardo Muti; and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, and Staatskapelle Dresden under their respective chief conductors: Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev, and Christian Thielemann. The concerts are being recorded live for CD.

Also in celebration of 2020’s Beethoven anniversary, Mr. Buchbinder has initiated Diabelli 2020: New Diabelli Variations—a series of new compositions based on Beethoven’s Op. 120—written by Lera Auerbach, Brett Dean, Toshio Hosokawa, Christian Jost, Brad Lubman, Philippe Manoury, Krzysztof Penderecki, Max Richter, Rodion Shchedrin, Johannes Maria Staud, Tan Dun, and Jörg Widmann. These new variations were commissioned by a group of international organizers with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

In 2019, Mr. Buchbinder became an exclusive recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon. He is an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Staatskapelle Dresden, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He attaches great importance to source research and maintains a private music collection comprising 39 complete editions of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, as well as an extensive archive of first prints.

For more information, visit buchbinder.net.