Mariss Jansons
Latvian conductor Mariss Jansons, 76 will be presented with the Herbert von Karajan Prize at the 2019 Salzburg Easter Festival. This Prize, endowed by Eliette von Karajan and worth EUR 50,000, will be presented at the Orchestral Concert of 14 April, when Mariss Jansons will conduct the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Mariss Jansons is this year’s guest conductor at the Easter Festival. He is one of the few conductors for whom Herbert von Karajan was a musical mentor. They met for the first time in 1968, when Karajan was performing as a guest in the Soviet Union with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Jansons was the youngest of twelve students invited to conduct for Karajan in a masterclass. Afterwards, Karajan invited him to study with him. In 1971, Mariss Jansons was a prize-winner at the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition.
Mariss Jansons’s initial impressions of the Easter Festival date back to its early years: ‘I experienced the Salzburg Easter Festival already back in 1969 under Herbert von Karajan. It made an incredible, deep impression on me – especially Herbert von Karajan himself, of course, with his rehearsals, orchestra concerts and opera performances. I will never forget that time!’
