Orchestre de Paris
Orchestras
True to its history, this orchestra of 119 full-time musicians offers a vast repertoire extending from symphonic works to opera and the music of our own time. It is in permanent residence at the Salle Pleyel, where it rehearses and performs all the concerts in its Paris season.
Three centuries of repertoire
Founded in 1967, the Orchestre de Paris soon asserted its position as a worthy successor to the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, the earliest French symphony orchestra (1828-1967). The first music director of the newly created orchestra, Charles Munch, was followed by a series of outstanding conductors: Herbert von Karajan, Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim, Semyon Bychkov,Christoph von Dohnányi, and Christoph Eschenbach. This season marks a turning point for the orchestra, as the new music director Paavo Järvi takes up his functions. The year 1976 saw the creation of the Chorus of the Orchestre de Paris, which today comprises 140 amateur singers.
Opportunities for young people
The training of young musicians is a top priority for the Orchestre de Paris. Since 2003, within the framework of the Académie de l’Orchestre de Paris and in collaboration with the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris (CNSMDP) and the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris (CRR), it has developed numerous initiatives aimed at young musicians embarking on a professional career. The orchestra also operates a dynamic educational policy aimed at youthful audiences. During the 2010/11 season, this will allow the Orchestre de Paris to welcome more than 30,000 young people to such events as open rehearsals, workshops, discovery programmes spread over a season, family concerts, and free concerts exclusively for schools.
The importance of contemporary music
Through its policy of commissions and first performances, the Orchestre de Paris has consistently given a key place to the work of contemporary composers. In the course of the 2010/11 season, the orchestra will give the French premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Con brio under the direction of Christoph von Dohnányi, the world premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Silhouette, composed specially for Paavo Järvi’s arrival in Paris, and the first French performance of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Variations orchestrales sur une oeuvre de Janáček.
A major contribution to opera
The Orchestre de Paris regularly takes part in staged productions of opera at the Théâtre du Châtelet, the Opéra Comique and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The collaboration with the TCE will continue in April 2011 with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande featuring Natalie Dessay, Simon Keenlyside and Laurent Naouri under the direction of Louis Langrée.
An international reputation
As an ambassador for French culture, the Orchestre de Paris is applauded in Europe, the United States (where it is a regular guest at Carnegie Hall in New York), Latin America, and Asia. The coming season will see appearances at the MITO Festival of Milan and Turin conducted by Lorin Maazel and a tour of Spain, followed by Pelléas et Mélisande with Natalie Dessay under Louis Langrée at the Barbican Centre in London. The orchestra will then give three concerts with Paavo Järvi at the Vienna Musikverein in May 2011 before concluding its season at the Bad Kissingen Festival.
A living heritage
The active recording policy of the Orchestre de Paris demonstrates its eagerness to bring new life to the symphonic heritage and encourage contemporary creation. Among its most recent releases are Beethoven’s Piano Concertos nos. 1 and 4 with Lang Lang under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach. The arrival of Paavo Järvi at the head of the orchestra will coincide with the release in autumn 2010 of their first recording together, devoted to music by Bizet (Virgin Classics).
Season 2010/2011
PAAVO JÄRVI
Music Director
Grammy-award winning Paavo Järvi has built a remarkable conducting reputation. Born in Tallinn, Estonia, he 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.
He became Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in September 2001 and has recently extended his contract with the orchestra until 2011/12. During his Music Directorship they have toured together throughout America (including a California and a West Coast tour) and Japan. Their second tour of Europe in April 2008 was a major success and included concerts in Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Barcelona and Madrid.
Currently in his third season as Music Director of Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi and the orchestra have just returned from a very successful tour to China and. Previous tours have taken them to major European Festivals, including the BBC Proms, the Rheingau Musik Festival in Germany and the Robeco Summer series in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
Paavo Järvi has been the Artistic Leader of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2004 and has led the orchestra to highest public and critical acclaim for their concerts and recordings (on SonyBMG) of Beethoven Symphonies. Their first CD with Symphonies No 3 and 8 won the prestigious Annual German Record Critics’ Prize for 2007, while the second volume with Symphonies No 4 and 7 has been praised as “brilliantly conceived interpretations of both works, full of idiomatic fire and athletic drive” (Classics Today, January 2008). Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen will perform all the Beethoven symphonies in the Champs Elysees in March 2009, at the 2009 Salzburg Festival and at the Warsaw Easter Festival in 2010. They will also take part in the re-opening concerts for Alice Tully Hall (New York) in 2009. As Artistic Advisor to the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Mr Järvi is known for having championed many works by Estonian composers including Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Lepo Sumera and Eduard Tubin. His Virgin Classics recording of Sibelius Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Male Choir and Ellerhein Girls Choir won a Grammy Award for “Best Choral Performance”. His most recent recording - E-S Tüür’s Symphony No.4 “Magma” with Evelyn Glennie - was nominated for a 2008 Gramophone Award.
Paavo Järvi will become the seventh Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris in 2010/11, joining an eminent list of conductors who have held the post since 1967, including: Daniel Barenboim, Sir Georg Solti, Herbert von Karajan, and Charles Munch.
In addition to his permanent positions, Paavo Järvi is in much demand as a guest conductor appearing regularly with orchestras such as Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles, New York Philharmonic, Boston, Staatskapelle Dresden, La Scala and NHK Symphony. Highlights of 2007/08 included a return to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He gave his very successful debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in November 2006 and made his subscription series debut with the Cleveland Orchestra in May 2007. In 2008/09, he will return to Cleveland, as well as to the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Orchestre de Paris and the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich.
Mr Järvi’s extensive discography for EMI/Virgin Classics includes orchestral music by Grieg, the Grammy award-winning recording of Sibelius’s Cantatas, and Grieg’s Peer Gynt, which won the best orchestral recording in the 2006 BBC Music Magazine Awards. All three discs were recorded with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. Paavo Järvi has released more than 10 CDs on Telarc with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Their most recent release is a recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. With the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, he has recently embarked on a cycle of Bruckner symphonies, the first of which – Symphony No.7 – has just been released by Sony BMG.
