Happy Birthday, Paavo Järvi!

Round birthdays are not only occasions for singing, but also for looking back. Or in this case: For three insights into the photo album of our Music Director.

The childhood

The earliest photo was taken in Estonia, where Paavo Järvi grew up. He had no choice but to become a musician, he says, «and that's a good thing.» As the son of conductor Neeme Järvi (pictured right), he was always surrounded by music – and also by great composers: as a boy he met Dmitri Shostakovich (center), and Arvo Pärt was «Uncle Arvo» to him. But his mother Liilia, who was responsible for everything besides music: for the children, the schools, the furniture, the money.

The study

Paavo Järvi's mother was also the one who took the decision to emigrate in 1980: The family moved from Estonia, then part of the Soviet Union, to the United States. Here Paavo studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and in Los Angeles with Leonard Bernstein (pictured left), from whom he learned this, among other things: «You have to be very well prepared. But when you go on stage, throw everything out of your head – and feel!»

The present

What does a conductor do on a construction site? In this case, he visits his future place of work, the Tonhalle am See, which was still under renovation when he took office in 2019. The decision to go to Zurich was spontaneous. «If they asked me, I would say yes»: That's what he thought after his first concert with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Paavo Järvi once recounted.

The start in the Tonhalle Maag was brilliant – until Corona put the brakes on the concert schedule a few months later. In the meantime, everything is running smoothly again: the renovated hall is filled to the brim with sound and energy and silence in concerts with Paavo; in rehearsals, sometimes with laughter because of one of his dry sayings. And when he passes on to the young conductors in the Conductors' Academy what he once learned himself; when he then awards an invitation to his festival in Pärnu as a prize, where the Järvis play by the dozen: Then a circle closes.

Translated with DeepL.com