The Orchestra

“There isn’t a hint of a hothouse environment on stage – these are simply musicians having the time of their lives, no small thanks to the inspiring Paavo Järvi himself.”
BBC Music Magazine, UK

The Estonian Festival Orchestra was founded by Paavo Järvi in 2011 as the resident orchestra of the Pärnu Music Festival. The long dreamed of ambition by Järvi to create a hand picked orchestra, bringing together the best of Estonian talent and leading musicians from around the world, has led to international acclaim: “one of the world’s great orchestras” (The Arts Desk, UK), “with a truly breathtaking energy and virtuosity” (Diapason, France), “imbued with the spirit of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra” (Der Standard, Austria), where “there are no egos, but truly passionate people in making and listening to the best music” (El Pais, Spain) and where “year after year you can see and hear the artists evolve, open up, listen to each other” (die Welt, Germany).

“An important component in creating the orchestra was to “match-make” the players” says Paavo Järvi. “If you are a young player in Estonia, it doesn’t matter how good you are, it’s not often easy to make contact with a top player in the west. Now we can give these young musicians the advantage to play with elite players from abroad and get to know them as new friends. This spirit is what drives the orchestra and it is a delight each summer to see how those relationships have grown naturally, creating a melting pot of national and international talent where nationality is happily and importantly no boundary.”

In January 2018 the Estonian Festival Orchestra made its first European tour with concerts in Berlin, Brussels, Cologne, Luxemburg, Vienna and Zürich. In the same year it debuted at Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and London Royal Albert Hall, making history as the first Estonian ensemble to perform at the BBC Proms.  Since then it  has toured regularly throughout Europe, Japan and Korea.

The Estonian Festival Orchestra has released four albums on Alpha Classics: Shostakovich Symphony No. 6 and Sinfonietta (2018), Mythos, dedicated to the music of Erkki-Sven Tüür in celebration of his 60th birthday (2019), Estonian Premieres (2022) highlighting the music of Tõnu Kõrvits, Ülo Krigul, Helena Tulve, Tauno Aints and Lepo Sumera, Kratt (2023) featuring works by Eduard Tubin, Witold Lutosławski and Grażyna Bacewicz, and Ship of Fools premiering new orchestral works by Jüri Reinvere.

REVIEW HIGHLIGHTS

“… this was a performance of shape, depth, power, concentration, reactivity and ferocity. It rose from first note to last, and by the final pages – drawn out by Järvi to underline Sibelius’s heart-rending sense of strain – it resembled a roaring cry for freedom. Few could have missed the symbolism, as if the dozens of young Estonian musicians among the ensemble were seizing the opportunity to introduce themselves to the world. The audience went wild, with pride as much as with joy.”
Klassisk, Denmark

“in a run-through of the first two movements of Sibelius’s Second Symphony, the brilliant clarity suddenly also gave way into an enormous emotional depth, which was not least born from the intimate string sound. The great music of the Finn, as newly born in a Pan-European spirit: a moving promise.”
Die Presse, Austria

“In the Pärnu concert hall Sibelius’ symphony is suddenly transformed into a game of light and mass … Music for the eyes in both form and meaning, and there is nothing more fascinating.”
Der Standaard, Belgium

“… this surely unrepeatable performance of Sibelius’s Second Symphony almost burned the house down with its incandescence … the slow movement especially more inspired and dangerously intense than I’ve ever heard it.
The Arts Desk, UK

“… The Sibelius symphony showed an orchestra with a nerve and willingness to play all the way … the energy and cohesion to create an uncontrollable and direct symphonic world that hit right in the diaphragm.”
Politiken, Denmark

“Here there are no egos, but truly passionate people in making and listening to the best music.”
El Pais, Spain

“… This is highly concentrated music making, where all the details are worked out: the ping pong of accents between violins and horns, antiphons between the woodwind groups, targeted focus curves in the second violins. Nothing is sweeping, nothing sleepy and nothing washed away.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany

“Above all there is the Estonian Festival Orchestra, the backbone of this music week and which has long proved itself internationally on tour! The latest, great baby of the great educator Paavo Järvi … And year after year you can see and hear the artists evolve, open up, listen to each other.”
Die Welt, Germany

“Paavo Järvi brings together his Estonian Festival Orchestra which he composes ad hoc, of handpicked musicians. Immediately sensitive, the complicity between instrumentalist and conductor allowed a remarkable economy of rehearsals and injected the concert with a truly breathtaking energy and virtuosity.”
Diapason, France

“The orchestra is making international waves – including an impressive debut at the BBC Proms last summer – but to hear them on their own turf in front of its adoring home audience gave the perfect introduction to this festival’s ethos.”
Bachtrack.com, UK

“… the festival orchestra has a very special tone. It is dark, homogeneously mixed and slender, but when it comes down to it, it also unfolds a deep inner glow.
Hamburger Abendblatt, Germany

“Paavo Järvi seems to effortlessly combine the musicians into a body of sound that does not reveal its (individual) composition, with a level of agility as well as the ability to perform with powerful eruptions.”
Berliner Zeitung, Germany

CONDUCTOR

STRINGS

WIND

BRASS

PERCUSSION