The legendary actor and comedian Bill Murray has become one of the most thought after artists in America. He was born William J. Murray on September 21, 1950, in Wilmette, Illinois. After spending time as a member of the cast of Chicago’s famed Second City improvisational comedy troupe, Murray relocated to New York City, where he took his comedic talents to radio’s National Lampoon Hour (1973-74) alongside Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi. In 1975, he was in an Off-Broadway spin-off of the comedy radio show when Howard Cosell recruited him for a show called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell (1975-1976). A year later, producer Lorne Michaels tapped Murray to replace Chevy Chase on a much bigger sensation, NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL).

Ironically insincere and yet somehow soft-hearted, Murray is the best-known star to emerge from the cast of Saturday Night Live. On SNL from 1977-1980, he created the cheesy lounge crooner, Nick, and other lovably smarmy characters. It didn’t take long for him to move from the small screen to the big screen, and his first major film role was in the 1979 box office hit Meatballs. He then starred in two of the top-grossing comedies of the 1980s: playing a woolly-headed groundskeeper in Caddyshack (1980) and a slick-talking investigator in Ghostbusters (1984, with fellow SNL alumnus Dan Aykroyd). Murray’s comedy hits in the 1990s included Groundhog Day (1993) and the Amish bowling story Kingpin (1996). He also took more serious roles, playing a mobster in Mad Dog and Glory (1993, with Robert DeNiro) and an eccentric businessman in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore (1998), for which he won Best Supporting Actor from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his seriocomic role as a jet-lagged movie star in Tokyo in Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation (2003).

Murray earned rave reviews for his portrayal of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson (2012) and he also reunited with Anderson for a role in Moonrise Kingdom that same year. Murray was also in Anderson’s next film, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), with Jude Law and Ralph Fiennes, as well as The Monuments Men (2014). He was nominated for a lead actor Golden Globe® for his role in the comedy St. Vincent (2014), co-starring Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts. That same year he starred as Jack Kennison in the acclaimed HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge, for which he earned his second Emmy Award. In 2015, Murray was seen in the comedy Rock the Kasbah portraying a music manager who starts to handle the career of an Afghani teen. He recently voiced the character of Boss in Anderson’s acclaimed animated film, Isle of Dogs (2018), and had a cameo role in Danny McBride’s HBO comedy, Vice Principals. His most recent work includes Anderson’s acclaimed film The French Dispatch (2021) as well as a return to his highly popular and acclaimed role as Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024).

Recognized not only as an actor, but also as a humorist, Bill Murray was awarded The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in October 2016. He is an avid golfer and a particular fan favorite at the annual AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. His passion for baseball and golf is just as famous as his ability to turn everything into art, and his eccentric and irreverent style have caused him to be seen by many as a folk hero.

In 2013, Bill Murray met internationally acclaimed cellist Jan Vogler during a transatlantic flight. Out of the friendship between the two men ‘New worlds’ was born in 2016. The show, which reconnected Mr. Murray with his love for singing, poetry, literature and music has been performed live in more than 60 cities across the globe. A filmed version was released in cinemas worldwide in 2022 New Worlds: Cradle of Civilization after its 2021 premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

Jan Vogler’s distinguished career has brought him together with renowned conductors and internationally acclaimed orchestras around the world, such as New York Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and London Philharmonic Orchestra. His great ability allowed him to explore the sound boundaries of the cello and to establish an intensive dialogue with contemporary composers and artists. This includes regular world premieres, including works by Tigran Mansurian (with WDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov), John Harbison (with Mira Wang and the Boston Symphony Orchestra), Udo Zimmermann (Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), Wolfgang Rihm (Double Concerto with Mira Wang), Jörg Widman (Cello Concerto Dunkle Saiten, dedicated to Jan Vogler himself), Nico Muhly, Sven Helbig and Zhou-Long (Drei Kontinente – Konzert für Cello und Orchester, composed for Jan Vogler) and Sean Shepherd (On a Clear Day based on a cycle of poems by Ulla Hahn, for cello, choirs and orchestra, which was premiered in 2023 with the Philharmonic State Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano). The New York Times praises his “soulful, richly hued playing” and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung grants him the ability “to make his cello speak like a singing voice”.

In addition to his classical concert activities as a soloist, Jan Vogler is constantly looking for new ways to combine music with other arts. In February 2024, he gave a highly acclaimed concert with inaugural-poet Amanda Gorman, performing Gorman’s contemporary poems with cello suites by J. S. Bach in the Isaac Stern Auditorium in Carnegie Hall. The duo appeared on the popular ‘Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert’ in March 2024. Jan Vogler has also collaborated with actor Bill Murray for their joint musical-literary project “Bill Murray, Jan Vogler & Friends – New Worlds”. The innovative programme drew international attention and brought together works by Twain, Hemingway, Whitman, Cooper, Bernstein, Bach, Piazzolla, Mancini, Gershwin and Foster for an unexpected and exciting exploration of the relationship between literature and music.

Highlights of Jan Vogler’s career as a soloist are concerts with the New York Philharmonic – both in New York and Dresden at the occasion of the reopening of the rebuilt Dresdner Frauenkirche under the direction of Lorin Maazel in 2005 –, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh and Montréal Symphony Orchestras, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra dell’ Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic as well as with The Knights. He collaborates with conductors such as Andris Nelsons, Fabio Luisi, Sir Antonio Pappano, Valery Gergiev, Thomas Hengelbrock, Manfred Honeck and Kent Nagano.

Under the artistic direction of Jan Vogler and conductor Kent Nagano, Wagner’s “Ring Tetralogy” will be performed in the artistic context of the period in which it was composed, based on the latest findings of research into Wagner and performance practice, and integrated into an extensive supporting program as part of the multi-year project “The Wagner Cycles” of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele from 2023 to 2026. The prelude was the performance of “Das Rheingold” at the Dresden Music Festival in 2023 and the tour to Cologne, Ravello and Lucerne under the musical direction of Kent Nagano. With “Die Walküre,” the second work in the epochal narrative will follow in 2024.

Jan Vogler has been working successfully with the Sony Classical label since 2003 and in the course of this cooperation around 20 CDs have been produced so far. The most recent releases were with the cello concertos of Edouard Lalo and Enrique Casals in March 2023, The Dvorak Album in July 2022 with musicians from the Moritzburg Festival, which focused on works by the composer, and Pop Songs in May 2022, in which Jan Vogler explores the history of pop song over the past centuries with Omer Meir Wellber and the BBC Philharmonic. June 2020 also saw the release of his recording of the cello concerto Three Continents written especially for the cellist by Nico Muhly (USA), Sven Helbig (D) and Zhou Long (CHN) with the WDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Cristian Măcelaru, as well as the Second Cello Concerto by Shostakovich with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev.

Previous recordings include a recording of double concertos for violin & violoncello by Rihm, Brahms and Harbison, together with violinist Mira Wang, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Peter Oundjian (May 2018), as well as Schumann’s cello concerto together with the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Ivor Bolton (October 2016), Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Moritzburg Festival Ensemble (March 2016), Concerti di Venezia with La Folia Baroque Orchestra featuring Venetian cello Concertos from the 18th century from Vivaldi, Caldara, Porpora e.a., the Schumann album Dichterliebewith Hélène Grimaud e.a., and his critically acclaimed recording of Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. After the success of his CD My Tunes featuring short character pieces, a volume 2 was published. It was followed by an award-winning recording of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the New York Philharmonic under David Robertson (Pizzicato Supersonic Award, Diapason d’Or Janvier, Choc – Le Monde de la Musique Mars).

Jan Vogler has been Intendant of the renowned Dresden Music Festival since October 2008 as well as Artistic Director of the Moritzburg Festival since 2001. In 2017 the Moritzburg Festival celebrated its 25th anniversary as one of the most established chamber music festivals internationally.

In 2006, he received the European Award for Culture and in 2011 the Erich-Kästner Award for tolerance, humanity and international understanding. In June 2018 he received the European Award for Culture TAURUS as Director of the Dresden Music Festival. 2021 Jan Vogler was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Jan Vogler plays the Stradivari ‘Ex Castelbarco/Fau’ 1707 cello.