Maestro! offers a full range of international travel, touring and production solutions for a diverse mix of internationally-celebrated performers, arts management companies, orchestras, choirs, dance companies & special projects.
On Monday 4th July 1994 Maestro! opened for business with one of the first email addresses in the UK!
25 years on and our dedicated team (who between 4 of them have more than 75 years service!) are proud to serve an international community of performing arts clients including world renowned soloists, orchestras, dance companies and attractions as well as a loyal group of music lovers who travel regularly with us around the world.
Highlights of our 25 years have included working for Anne Sophie Mutter since 1996 including her debut performace in Beijing (in 1997) and her world tour of the Beethoven Sonatas plus numerous recital tours for her and Lambert Orkis and her Mutter Virtuosi; looking after Andris Nelsons from his early days with CBSO to his current Music Directorships in Boston & Leipzig (plus many other engagements around the world), 25 years of touring for Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra, ten North American tours for KODO; our long standing relationship with Carnegie Hall and their National Youth Orchestra of the USA; NYO Jazz and NYO2 projects and more than 150 concerts around the world with Sting with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra for his Symphonicities project. Over the years we have been privileged to work for such outstanding artist managers as Frank Solomon, Douglas Sheldon and Mary Jo Connealy in the US and Harold Clarkson, Karen McDonald and Sergio Porto Bargiela in Europe.
Of course our involvement in the world of touring started much closer to home with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and we are really pleased to be able to mark our 25 year relationship with the dedication of the Maestro! Bell which was cast in Asten, Netherlands just a few weeks ago and will be delivered to the orchestra on the 12th July. This final bell will make the Orchestra the only one in the UK to have a full set of church bells. The bells will also create income for the Orchestra through regular rentals to other UK and visiting orchestras.
The Maestro! Bell will make it's debut at the BBC Proms on Sunday 4th August with the BBC Philharmonic under Maestro John Storgårds in a performance of Shostakovich Symphony No 11 in G minor 'The Year 1905'
The Slovak & Czech Embassies in London joined forces today for the first UK screening of a beautifully crafted and moving documentary by Veronika Homolová Tóthová which tells the story of the escape of the 'Winton Children' from Prague with a particular focus on the great sacrifice and selflessness of the parents who told their children "we will see each other soon" even though they knew it would probably never be so. It also commemorates the tireless and often unmentioned work of Marie Schmolková and Doreen Warriner who together with Sir Nicholas saved 669 Jewish children.
The documentary includes testimony from both Milena Grenfell-Baines & her sister Eva Paddock (who was just 3 years old when put on the train).
The screening was followed by a reception at the Slovak Embassy, during which both Ambassadors congratulated Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, MBE on her 90th birthday year. Milena was both one of the 'children' and the driving force behind the project to establish a permanent memorial to Sir Nicholas and the children in Prague.
The "Farewell Memorial” was symbolically created both in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic and takes the form of the carriage door & window of the train in which the Winton children travelled to England. The glass in the window carries imprints of hands of the children on one side and of their parents on the other. It was unveiled at the main railway station in Prague in May 2017 but was badly damaged in an anti-Semitic attack in June of this year. We understand that the Czech Railways and Czech Government have immediately agreed to cover all costs of the repairs to the memorial and proper security going forward.
You can watch the indredibly moving moment in 1988 when Esther Rantzen reunited Sir Nicholas with 80 of his 'children' on This is Your Life by clicking the link below
Today The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst embark on their nineteenth tour together, with eleven performances scheduled across Asia in seven cities: Taipei, Macao, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Beijing. They are joined by world-renowned pianist Daniil Trifonov.
Maestro! are honoured to have been engaged by The Cleveland Orchestra and Askonas Holt to organise the touring logistics by air rail and sea for this landmark tour.
Follow their travels from Nanjing to Wuhan on the video blog below
