Conductor Kristjan Järvi comes from the Estonian city of Tallinn and belongs to a very musical family: both his father and his brother are conductors of equal renown. Järvi is a cosmopolitan figure who feels as much at home in the United States as in "the Old World". This attitude applies to his musical projects as well, which range from Baroque to jazz, from Classical to folk music. His most recent recording featured compositions by his countryman Arvo Pärt: the album Cantique, available on Sony Classical, is a sensitive portrait combining in congenial fashion works from many different phases of this musical visionary's career.
The Munich composer Carl Orff enjoyed unexpected international success with his Carmina Burana, and Kristjan Järvi might well follow in his footsteps with his new and innovative reading. Immediately after the first performance in June 1937, Orff wrote to his publisher: "Forget everything that I wrote hitherto and that you unfortunately published! Carmina Burana marks the beginning of my collected works!"
  There can't be many people who don't know at least the massive choral piece "O Fortuna" that opens and closes the Cantiones profanae, the secular songs after medieval manuscripts kept in Benediktbeuern Abbey. Pretty much everyone with an interest in culture will recognise Orff's instrumental sound straight off, dominated as it is by a large percussion section. And no less familiar is the Wheel of Fortune, the medieval miniature that found fame as the cover picture to the score of Carmina Burana: it depicts Fortuna, the capricious goddess of destiny, whose wheel of fate all creatures are at the mercy of, and in which the beginning and end of earthly existence come full circle.
The work's popularity was certainly one point that prompted Kristjan Järvi to choose Carmina Burana to open his inaugural season as the new principal conductor of the MDR Symphony Orchestra. Another was the subject matter that set out from an insignificant Bavarian monastery to conquer the world – an ideal starting point for a musical journey! As the conductor himself puts it, his musical journey in the company of the MDR Symphony Orchestra begins "in a Germany that has long since ceased to exist, with anti-Catholic satire, Latin jests and the songs of heathens who travelled through Central Europe around the year 1200. Somehow or other, a manuscript of unknown origin survived for centuries and found its way to Carl Orff, who turned it into this famous work. But the underlying story here is about nomads, about travellers who took their art, their songs and their culture with them. That's the clear message with which we set out on our journey eastwards, planning to cross boundaries as we go."  
On this journey, Kristjan Järvi is accompanied by soloists Kiera Duffy (soprano), Marco Panuccio (tenor) and Daniel Schmutzhard (baritone), by the MDR Radio Choir, the MDR Children's Choir and the MDR Symphony Orchestra. A new complete recording of Carmina Burana that should bring old listening habits together with new ones – and that is entirely Järvi's intention!