Jansons received the Danish Sonning music prize 2018, and he was regarded as one of the world's greatest conductors.

The Latvian conductor Mariss Jansons, who received the Danish Sonning music prize 2018, has died, 76 years of age.

He is dead of a heart attack at his home in St. petersburg. Petersburg in Russia, informs the St. - Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov, according to AFP news agency.

- A sincere gratitude for his great art will be with us always, says Beglov.

Jansons health deteriorating for many years with repeated heart attack. But nevertheless, he was considered one of the world's largest and most dynamic conductors.

After the doctor's recommendation he had in July to cancel a series of scheduled concerts with the Bayerischen Rundfunks symphony Orchestra.

Jansons was born 14. January 1943 in the Latvian capital, Riga. His father was the conductor Arvid Jansons.

But the most crucial is his first year in life was his mother Iradia, who was an opera singer. She was a jew in German-occupied Latvia. Almost all of the jews Milanobet in Riga were deported and killed during the war.

DR in an earlier portrait of Jansons written, to he pregnant mother was smuggled out of the jewish ghetto in Riga to give birth at a secret place.

It saved then Mariss Jansons. But the worse it went for the whole of his mother's family, who all disappeared during the jødeudryddelserne.

He received the Sonning music prize 2018 at 745.000 million for its "intense" contribution to developing the symphonic music.

Jansons received his musical education in St. petersburg. Petersburg, where the family had moved to in 1956.

His big breakthrough as a conductor came from in 1979, where he was chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for many years.

He has been affiliated with several major european orchestras, most recently among others, the Vienna Philharmonic, which was the first to confirm on Sunday that he was dead.

He has guest starred with the Danish orchestras, including the south Jutland symphony Orchestra and the Copenhagen philharmonic Orchestra.

He was one of the conductors, who stood highest on the DR Symphony orchestra's wish list.

/ritzau/