JTI – Japan Tobacco International – is one of the world’s leading tobacco companies. Headquartered in Geneva, it operates in 120 countries and employs approximately 25,000 people from 90 nations.

Besides funding a wide variety of social projects worldwide, JTI also supports the arts, maintaining partnerships with institutions such as the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg; the Royal Academy of Arts, London; the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel; the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; the Museo del Teatro alla Scala, Milan; the Musée du Louvre, Paris; the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow. JTI is also increasingly committed to supporting contemporary fine art and film.

As of 2013, in partnership with the Salzburg Festival, JTI will fund one opera world premiere in Salzburg each year. JTI will thus be making an innovative contribution to one of the world’s most traditional and renowned festivals of music and drama.