Mariss Jansons (b. January 14, 1943) is a prominent Latvian conductor, the son of conductor Arvid Jansons. His mother, the singer Iraida Jansons, who was Jewish, gave birth to him in hiding in Riga, Latvia, after her father and brother were killed in the Riga ghetto. As a child, he first studied violin with his father. In 1946, his father won second prize in a national competition and was chosen by Yevgeny Mravinsky to be his assistant at the Leningrad Philharmonic. Wikipedia
The definitive Wikipedia entry for Mariss Jansons. Wikipedia is the biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariss_Jansons
