Artist(s):
Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)
Paul Lewis (piano) on 22nd September 2025
María Dueñas (violin) on 23rd September 2025
Bayerisches Staatsorchester

The above information, including performance times, lineups, programmes and ticket prices, are all subject to change without prior notice and for reference only.

Conductor: Vladimir Jurowski
Vladimir Jurowski, born in Moscow, began his musical training at the city’s conservatory, continuing his journey at the colleges of music in Berlin and Dresden. He made his international opera debut in 1995 at the Wexford Festival with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night. The same year he made his first appearance at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London with Nabucco. Since then, his conducting performances have included the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Opéra national de Paris, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Semperoper in Dresden, as well as at the Salzburg Festival. From 1997 until 2001 he was the First Kapellmeister of the Komische Oper in Berlin and subsequently Musical Director of the Glyndebourne Festival until 2013. From 2007 on he has been principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra until 2021 when he was appointed Conductor Emeritus; he is also principal conductor and artistic director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) since 2017.

In addition, he is Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and was until 2021 artistic director of the International George Enescu Festival in Bucharest and the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Evgeny Svetlanov”. He has also been a regular collaborator with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the ensemble unitedberlin. He has featured as guest conductor for orchestras including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the New York Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and Philadephia.

At the Bayerische Staatsoper he made his debut during the 2015/16 season at an academy concert featuring works including Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 3 and went on to conduct a new production of the composer’s opera The Fiery Angel. Furthermore, during the 2020/21 season he conducted the new production of Der Rosenkavalier. He has been general music director of the Bayerische Staatsoper since 2021 and has conducted a series of Akademiekonzerte as well as the premieres of Nos / Die Nase, Die Teufel von Loudun, Così fan tutte, Krieg und Frieden, Hamlet und Die Fledermaus. 2024 he was appointed by His Majesty King Charles III to Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

Paul Lewis Pianist
Paul Lewis is internationally regarded as one of the leading musicians of his generation. His cycles of core piano works by Beethoven and Schubert have received unanimous critical and public acclaim worldwide, and consolidated his reputation as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of the central European classical repertoire. His numerous awards have included the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, two Edison awards, three Gramophone awards, the Diapason D’or de l’Annee, the Preis Der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, and the South Bank Show Classical Music award. He holds honorary degrees from Liverpool, Edge Hill, and Southampton Universities, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

He works regularly as soloist with the world’s great orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, NHK Symphony, New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, and the Royal Concertgebouw, Cleveland, Tonhalle Zurich, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Philharmonia, and Mahler Chamber Orchestras.

María Dueñas Violinist
Spanish violinist María Dueñas beguiles audiences with the breathtaking array of colours she draws from her instrument. Her technical prowess, artistic maturity and bold interpretations have inspired rave reviews, captivated competition juries, and secured invitations to appear with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors. Born in Granada in 2002, María Dueñas fell in love with classical music via the recordings her parents played constantly at home and the concerts she attended in her native city. She started playing the violin at six and enrolled at her hometown's conservatory of music a year later. In 2014, she won a scholarship abroad sponsored by Juventudes Musicales de Madrid as well as the Humboldt Foundation's Wardwell Stipend and at first moved to Dresden to study at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music.

There she was soon discovered by conductor Marek Janowski, at whose invitation she later made her debut with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Since 2016 she has been studying with the renowned violin pedagogue Boris Kuschnir at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. Her competition victories began with the 2017 Zhuhai International Mozart Competition and 2018 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition. In addition to her success at the Menuhin Competition, 2021 saw her win first prize at the Getting to Carnegie Competition, the Grand Prize at the Viktor Tretyakov International Violin Competition, and the career advancement prize at the Rheingau Music Festival.

Bayerische Staatsorchester
In 2023, the Bayerische Staatsorchester celebrated its five hundredth anniversary, making it one of the oldest and most traditional ensembles in the world. Based in the Bayerische Staatsoper, the orchestra and its 144 members perform both in the orchestra pit and on the concert platform. In 2024, the orchestra was voted Orchestra of the Year for the tenth time in a row and for the twelfth time overall in the critics' survey conducted by Opernwelt magazine and was also honored at the Grammophone Awards in London for its recordings on the Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings label as an opera and symphony orchestra (for Die tote Stadt and The Snow Queen as well as for Mahler's Symphony No. 7) - an unprecedented success in the history of the Grammophone Awards.

In 1811, members of the former court orchestra founded the Musikalische Akademie e. V. association, which established Munich's first public concert series with the Academy Concerts. To this day, the Musikalische Akademie and its activities continue to shape the musical life of Munich and the Free State of Bavaria. The activities in Munich are complemented by numerous guest performances and concert tours, which regularly take the orchestra to the world's most important music centers.

The Bayerische Staatsorchester staged several premieres, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Idomeneo and Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as well as Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. Many of the most important musical personalities of their time led the orchestra as chief conductors: from Hermann Levi, Richard Strauss, Felix Mottl, Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch to Sir Georg Solti, Joseph Keilberth, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano and Kirill Petrenko. The orchestra also had a close relationship with Carlos Kleiber. With the 2021/22 season, Vladimir Jurowski has taken over the management of the Bayerische Staatsorchester as Bavarian General Music Director.