The London Philharmonic Orchestra announced on Tuesday that Paavo Järvi will succeed Edward Gardner as chief conductor from the 2028-29 season, when Gardner’s current contract comes to an end.
Järvi, 63, was born in Estonia into a musical dynasty. His father, Neeme is also a conductor, his younger brother Kristjan too. The family moved to the US in 1980, and Järvi studied at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music and at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute with Leonard Bernstein.
Over a storied career he has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Malmö Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Tokyo’s NHK Symphony and the Orchestre de Paris, where he was music director from 2010-16.
Paavo Järvi with the Estonian Festival Orchestra. Photograph: Tõiv Jõul
He has been the artistic director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen for more than two decades. In 2011 he founded the Pärnu music festival and its resident Estonian Festival Orchestra, and since 2019 he has been the chief conductor of Tonhalle-Orchester, Zurich. A regular visitor to the UK with these orchestras and as a guest conductor of the Philharmonia as well as the LPO, Järvi said it was a New Year 2025 tour to China with the orchestra that confirmed for him their chemistry.
