The famous New Year’s Day concert in Vienna that will be held tomorrow at the Musikverein Hall will this year be conducted by the Latvian conductor Mariss Jansons – one of the finest masters of the podium around.

Born in Riga in 1943, Jansons exploded on the musical scene in the early 1980’s with his trailblazing recordings of the complete Tchaikovsky symphonies with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos Records. The set has remained in the catalogue ever since and is one of the top recommendations for this cycle.

From 1971 until 1999, he was associate principal conductor of the St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) Philharmonic, and from 1979 to 2000 he was chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. His twenty-one year tenure with the Oslo Philharmonic is one of the longest and most impressive musical relationships of our time.

Between 1992 and 1997, Mariss Jansons also held the title of principal guest conductor for the London Philharmonic. Beginning in 1997 until the season 2003/04, Mariss Jansons led the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as music director.

After having stepped down from his Pittsburgh Symphony position, he has become the chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam as from autumn of 2004. Jansons is currently recording a complete symphonic cycle of Shostakovich symphonies for EMI that should be completed next year – just in time for the composer’s 30th anniversary.

The New Year concert (in German: Das Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker) of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is a concert that takes place each year in the morning of 1 January in Vienna, Austria. It is broadcast around the world to an estimated audience of one billion in 44 countries.

The music is mostly that of the Strauss family (Johann Strauss I, Johann Strauss II, Josef Strauss and Eduard Strauss). The flowers that decorate the Wiener Musikverein concert hall are a gift each year from the city of San Remo, Liguria, Italy.

The concert always ends with several encores after the main programme. The musicians then collectively wish the audience a happy new year, and close with Johann Strauss II’s Blue Danube Waltz, followed by the Radetzky March.

During this last piece, the audience claps along in time and the conductor turns to conduct them instead of the orchestra. The concert was first performed in 1939 (on 31 December of that year) conducted by Clemens Krauss.