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It is rare that a conductor achieves international acclaim within a few years of his debut, but such was the case with Vladimir Jurowski, whose star is still on the ascent. When he made his debut in 1995 at the Wexford Festival in Ireland with Rimsky-Korsakov's May Night, he was only 23.

Jurowski was born in Moscow on April 4, 1972. His father is famed conductor Michail Jurowski, and his grandfather, a composer, was also named Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski. Vladimir's first serious music studies were in his teens at the Moscow Conservatory. The Jurowski family moved to Germany in 1990, where young Vladimir studied conducting with Rolf Reuter. Jurowski made his first recording, Kancheli's cantata Exil, in 1994 (ECM Records), even before his official debut the following year. Jurowski's Wexford Festival success led to his debut at Covent Garden later that season in Verdi's Nabucco. His first operatic recording appeared on Marco Polo in 1997, an acclaimed three-CD set containing Meyerbeer's rarely encountered L'étoile du nord, derived from live performances at the 1996 Wexford Festival. Soon, he became known in the concert hall as well, earning a sequence of steadily more significant orchestral posts.

After his appearances at the Wexford Festival and Covent Garden, he began conducting at the Komische Oper Berlin, where he worked as an assistant to Yakov Kreizberg during the 1996-1997 season. The following year, he was appointed kapellmeister there. Jurowski left his Berlin post in 2001, the year he assumed music directorship of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, remaining there through 2013. He was also the principal guest conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna for three seasons. In 2003, Jurowski was appointed the principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and two years later began serving in the same capacity with the Russian National Orchestra. In 2007, he was named the principal conductor of the London Philharmonic; his conductorship of the orchestra was extended several times until he became the orchestra's conductor emeritus at the conclusion of the 2020-2021 season. He was one of ten conductors to endorse and participate in a major outreach program designed to introduce classical music to students. Jurowski was named the chief conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2015 (his contract has been extended through 2027), and in 2018, the Bavarian State Opera announced his appointment, beginning with the 2021-2022 season. He also held the position of principal artist for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Jurowski's post as leader of the London Philharmonic has made him one of the most prolific conductors of the 2000s and 2010s. His recordings have focused on late Romantic repertory, by no means all of it Russian, and he has recorded music from Beethoven (the "Eroica" Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 55) to contemporary repertory. In the U.S., Jurowski has had recurring guest conductor slots with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he has returned to Russia for conducting and recording engagements with the Russian National Orchestra and the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation. In 2020, Jurowski was heard with Nicola Benedetti on a Decca album of Elgar's music and on a Hyperion album of Shostakovich violin concertos with Alina Ibragimova. Jurowski material recorded with the London Philharmonic continued to appear through the COVID-19 pandemic, including a pair of live albums devoted to Stravinsky's ballets in 2022 and 2023. By that time, Jurowski's recording catalog comprised more than 75 albums. ~ Robert Cummings & James Manheim

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is a central institution of the British classical concert scene, performing major repertory works, British standards, contemporary music, and more. Especially on recordings, the group has also engaged with music from beyond the classical sphere.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra was formed in 1932 in response to a consensus that London's major orchestras, lacking strong artistic leadership, were inferior to those in Germany and even the U.S. So conductor Sir Thomas Beecham assembled a crack membership of 106 players, and the new orchestra was successful from the start. Beecham steered the group through financial difficulties at the beginning of World War II before resigning for health reasons and due to conflicts over the ensemble's artistic direction. Postwar conductors included Eduard van Beinum (1947 to 1951) and Sir Adrian Boult (1951 to 1958); the latter inaugurated an active recording program, releasing albums that remain standards to this day.

In 1966, Bernard Haitink became the orchestra's principal conductor; his tenure, lasting until 1979, was longer than that of any other conductor of the group until Vladimir Jurowski. The orchestra renovated a disused church, renamed it Henry Wood Hall, and began to use the space for rehearsals and recordings in 1975. Haitink's successor was another giant, Sir Georg Solti, who served as principal conductor from 1979 to 1983 and continued as conductor emeritus afterward, often appearing and recording with the orchestra. Solti was succeeded by a trio of Germans, Klaus Tennstedt in 1983, Franz Welser-Möst in 1990, and Kurt Masur in 2000. Welser-Möst officially installed the orchestra as the resident ensemble of the Royal Festival Hall, which remains its main concert venue.

The orchestra has also had numerous guest conductors over the years, and these have been responsible for many of its crossover releases. Although not as active in this field as the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic has made high-visibility film soundtrack recordings. These include soundtracks for such films as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The Fly (1986), and the trilogy The Lord of the Rings, as well as the anthology Academy Award Themes (1984). The orchestra has released albums devoted to the music of progressive rock bands Pink Floyd and Yes, and as far back as 1959, it released the album Hawaiian Paradise. In 2011, the London Philharmonic recorded 205 national anthems in preparation for the London Olympic Games of the following year. The orchestra's album releases, classical and otherwise, numbered 280 by 1997 and has increased by well over 250 albums since then; in the year 2001 alone, the orchestra released 21 albums. The London Philharmonic established its own LPO label in the mid-2000s decade and has issued large amounts of music, both classical and not, including Genius of Film Music: Hollywood Blockbusters 1980s to 2000s, in 2018.

In 2007, the London Philharmonic was in the forefront of taking advantage of the wave of talented Russian musicians who had emigrated to the West, installing Vladimir Jurowski as principal conductor. He remained in the post until 2020, becoming the orchestra's longest-serving conductor and leading the group in a 2021 recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand"). In 2020, Karina Canellakis became the orchestra's first female principal guest conductor. Jurowski was succeeded in 2021 by Edward Gardner, who became the group's first British principal conductor for decades. ~ James Manheim

Russian-born bass Sergei Leiferkus has proven himself authoritative in many areas of the repertory. He was among the first of the Soviet artists of the 1980s to have established himself as an important singer in the West, as well as in his own country. In addition to opera, he has excelled in recital and concert work. His sturdy, almost brazen timbre and incisive phrasing make a bold effect and his instrument's dark coloring makes it possible for him to effectively assume such bass parts as that of the soloist in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 (Babi Yar). After studies in Leningrad, Leiferkus was engaged by the Malïy Opera Theatre in 1972, remaining with that company as a principal singer until 1978. His debut at Leningrad's Kirov took place as Prince Andrei in 1977. As an increasingly important figure among that theater's growing roster of world-class singers, Leiferkus assumed such roles as Don Giovanni and Rossini's Figaro. His Western debut came not in an opera house, but rather on the concert stage when he appeared in 1980 with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kurt Masur. In 1982, he appeared at the small but well-known Wexford Festival singing the Marquis in Massenet's rather obscure Grisélidis. He was invited back for the title role in Marschner's Hans Heiling, the Fiddler in Humperdinck's Königskinder and Boniface in another Massenet rarity, Le jongleur de Notre-Dame. Leiferkus established other ties in the British Isles, performing Yevgeny Onegin and Don Giovanni for the Scottish Opera, essaying Zurga and Escamillo for the English National Opera and Zurga and Scarpia for Opera North. His debut at the Royal Opera took place as the Count di Luna in a 1989 production of Il trovatore. Subsequent roles there included Prince Igor, Iago, Onegin, Telramund, Scarpia, and Ruprecht in Prokofiev's Fiery Angel. With the Kirov company, Leiferkus toured England in 1987, performing both Onegin and Tomsky in Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame. The Glyndebourne Festival invited Leiferkus to repeat Tomsky in 1992; the same year, the baritone made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Onegin. Among his other nearly 50 roles are Mazeppa, Telramund, Pizarro (all three recorded), the elder Germont and Anckarstroem in Un ballo in maschera (a role that won him outstanding reviews at San Francisco in 2000). He has sung in such other venues as the Wiener Staatsoper, La Scala, the Teatro Colón, the Bastille Opera in Paris, and the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam. Besides Glyndebourne, Leiferkus has sung opera performances at the Salzburg Easter Festival, at Edinburgh, and at Bregenz. Leiferkus has made a series of excellent song recordings for both Conifer and Chandos. The first disc of his complete cycle of Mussorgsky songs was nominated for a Grammy, while Volume Two won a 1997 Cannes classical award, and three volumes from the set were honored with a Diapason d'Or that same year. The singer's recital appearances have been acclaimed in both America and England. Leiferkus has appeared several times at Lincoln Center and at the Frick Collection and has sung memorable programs at Covent Garden and Wigmore Hall. In addition to other recitals at Tanglewood, the Wexford Festival, the Kozerthaus in Vienna, and the Cologne Philharmonic, Leiferkus has conducted master classes at the Britten-Pears School at Aldeburgh, England.