Around the Music Festival

A postage stamp featuring the late conductor Mariss Jansons, who passed away at the age of 76 in 2019, will go on sale on July 28. The stamp is being issued by the state-owned postal service of his home country, Latvia.

In 2006, when Jansons conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s “New Year’s Concert,” a stamp was issued in Austria, making this the second time Jansons has been featured on a stamp.

The stamp was designed by artist Lilija Dinere and has a face value of €2.54. A total of 10,000 stamps will be issued, along with 500 envelopes. They will be available at post offices in major cities and online at veikals.pasts.lv.

Jansons was born in the capital city of Riga, into a family where his father was a conductor and his mother was a singer. His father, Arvīds, was a conductor for the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, which led the family to move to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1956.

He studied violin, piano, and conducting at the Leningrad Conservatory and later studied under Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts from 1969.

In 1971, he won second prize at the Karajan International Conducting Competition. That same year, he made his professional debut conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. He subsequently served as music director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (1979–2000) and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1997–2004).

He passed away on November 30, 2019, while serving as chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich (2003–) and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam (2004–). He died of heart failure at his home in St. Petersburg.

PHOTO：Veikals pasts


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