The Estonian Festival Orchestra was founded by Paavo Järvi and is the resident summer orchestra at the Pärnu Music Festival. The long dreamed ambition by Järvi to create a hand picked orchestra, brings together the best of Estonian talent and leading musicians from Europe’s top orchestras, resulting in performances which are now gaining international acclaim.
“An important component in creating the orchestra was to ‘match-make’ the players in a professional way but within the festival atmosphere” says Järvi. “This unifying spirit is what drives the orchestra and makes me particularly proud as its father figure.”
Before August 2017 the Estonian Festival Orchestra had performed only in Pärnu, but within less than two years they have made four tours including performances in neighbouring countries around the Baltic coast and at Scandinavia’s most prominent festivals (summer 2017); a major European tour celebrating Estonia100 (January 2018); BBC Proms and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie debuts (August 2018); and an extensive tour of Japan (April 2019).
For Paavo Järvi, the creation of the Estonian Festival Orchestra is potentially one of his most important musical achievements to date – a recognition of his native country and a celebration of its cultural identity within Europe.
