Concert program

22 May, 19:00
Odesa Opera House

SPECIAL PROJECT OF NEW ERA ORCHESTRA & ODESSA CLASSICS

New Era Orchestra
Tatiana Kalinichenko (conductor, art director)
Joshua Bell (violin)

Joshua Bell is one of the brightest violinists of our time. Winner of GRAMMY, OPUS KLASSIK, Gramophone, Avery Fischer awards, exclusive artist of SONY, Bell has performed with almost every leading orchestra in the world. Since 2011 Bell has been Music Director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, London Chamber Orchestra.

Bell also combines a career as a brilliant academic musician with participation in various television programs (including Sesame Street), recording music for popular films - in particular, it was Bell who performed the music of John Corigliano for the soundtrack to the film Red Violin (Corigliano specifically thanked Bell for inspirational performance at the Academy Award for Best Original Music); Bell's violin was later featured on the soundtrack for the film Angels and Demons .

As part of Bell's inclination to participate in events that are not quite usual for a major academic musician, one can also consider an experiment conducted with his participation on January 12, 2007 at the initiative of the Washington Post : for 43 minutes Bell played in the lobby of a metro station in Washington under the guise of an ordinary street musician. Out of a thousand people who passed by, only one recognized him by sight and only five or six made a special impression on him. At the same time, Bell earned only $32. This experiment was reflected in a detailed essay by the famous journalist Gene Weingarten, who reflected on this example about the nature of beauty and its place in the life of modern man.

New Era Orchestra (art director and chief conductor Tatiana Kalinichenko) is an independent Ukrainian orchestra that has become one of the most iconic musical groups in the country over the 13 years of its existence. International cooperation is one of the priorities of the orchestra's creative activity. The team's portfolio includes more than 20 successfully completed projects of the highest level. Tatiana Kalinichenko, art director and chief conductor of the orchestra, was the first in Ukraine to initiate joint projects with such outstanding musicians as Joshua Bell (violin, USA), Sarah Chang (violin, USA), Christoph Zitzen (percussion, Austria), Avi Avital (mandolin Israel), Maurice Steger (recorder, Switzerland) and others. At the same time, the orchestra actively promotes young talented Russian soloists of the new generation.

Program

2 June, 19:00
Odesa Opera House

Haifa Symphony Orchestra
Benjamin Yusupov (conductor)
Lucas Debargue (piano)

Lucas Debargue is an outstanding French pianist who regularly collaborates with leading orchestras in the most prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Hall, The Kennedy Center, Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Boston’s Jordan Hall and Sanders Theatre, Maison de la Musique in Montreal, the Royal Conservatory of Toronto, Theatre des Champs Elysées and Philharmonie de Paris, London's Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall, Berlin Philharmonic, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the concert halls of Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul,  Grand Hall of Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg.

The Haifa Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1950 and in recent years has become the focal point of musical life in Haifa and the north of Israel. The Orchestra keeps up to date and revitalized, both regarding the musical content as well as regarding the selection of the artists and soloists from Israel and abroad that it hosts.

Program

3 June, 19:00
Odesa Philharmonic

Haifa Symphony Orchestra
Benjamin Yusupov (conductor)
Maria Solozobova (violin)

Benjamin Yusupov is a composer, conductor and pianist. His extensive catalogue, which is published exclusively by Sikorski Musikverlag (Hamburg), has been performed extensively by a wide range of renowned artists and orchestra across the globe the likes of the London Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Bogota Philharmonic, New World Symphony, NDR Radio-Philharmonie Hannover, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic, to name a few. Yusupov works closely with outstanding artists as Maxim Vengerov, Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin, Alexander Kniazev, Maxim Rysanov, Sergei Nakariakov, Konstantin Lifschitz, Reinhold Friedrich and others.

Maria Solozobova is one of the most promising violinists of her generation. She has won several prestigious international music competitions, for instance the Johannes Brahms Competition in Austria (first prize and special audience price 2000), the W. A. Mozart Competition in Zurich (first prize 2005), the Tibor Varga Competition and the Rodolfo Lipizer Prize. Maria is a frequent guest, both as a soloist and a chamber musician, at the most prestigious festivals in the world. She has performed with many leading orchestras including the Baden-Baden Philharmonic, Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Wuerttembergische Philharmonie, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Zürich, Festival Strings Lucerne, Zurich Symphony Orchestra, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ljubljana Philharmonic Orchestra, Romanian Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow chamber orchestra "The Seasons" and the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow.

Program

4 June, 21:00 - Open-air
Potemkin Stairs

The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
Volodymyr Sirenko (art director & chief conductor)
Alexey Botvinov (piano)

Formed by the Council of Ministers of Ukraine in November of 1918, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine is considered to be one of the finest symphony orchestras in Eastern Europe. Its first conductor was Oleksander Horilyj. Natan Rachlin was the Artistic Director of the Orchestra from 1937 until 1962. Stefan Turchak, Volodymyr Kozhuchar, Fedir Hlushchenko, Igor Blazhkov and Theodore Kuchar consequently conducted the Orchestra as its Principal Conductors. Other conductors who worked with the NSOU include Leopold Stokowski, Igor Markevitch, Kurt Sanderling, Evgeny Mravinsky, Kiril Kondrashin, Evgeny Svetlanov, and Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Soloists who performed with the NSOU include Artur Rubinstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Emil Gilels, Leonid Kogan, Gidon Kremer, Oleh Krysa, Monserrat Caballe, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli and Juan Diego Flores.

Program

FREE ADMISSON

5 June, 19:00
Odesa Philharmonic

Brussels Chamber Orchestra
Michael Guttman (conductor, artistic director)
Jing Zhao (cello)

Michael Guttman is a  violin star in the musical sky of Europe.  Over the years he performed with a number of most distinguished artists and orchestras. He is a guest conductor of Brussels Chamber Orchestra and today is a leader of Arriaga String Quartet and Michael Guttman Tango Quartet.
He is initiator and  artistic director of Chamber Music Festival in Pietrasanta, Italy. Violinist and conductor Michael Guttman is indeed Odessa audience favourite. He has won this love with his brilliant performances at last Odessa Classics festivals. Michael Guttman is a programming consultant of Odessa Classics festival.

Cellist Jing Zhao  is widely known as a brilliant interpreter of classical and modern music. She is a student of an outstanding Japanese cellist Ryōsuke Hori and Mstislav Rostropovich.
Jing Zhao is the first prize winner of a music competition ARD (Internationaler Musikwettbewerb der ARD) in Germany. Jing Zhao performed with the world leading orchestras and outstanding conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel. 

Program

6 June, 19:00
Odesa Philharmonic

Matthias Goerne (baritone)
Alexey Botvinov (piano)

Matthias Goerne is one of the most versatile and internationally sought-after vocalists and a frequent guest at renowned festivals and concert halls. He has collaborated with leading orchestras all over the world. Conductors of the first rank as well as eminent pianists are among his musical partners.
Matthias Goerne has appeared on the world’s principal opera stages, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Teatro Real in Madrid; Paris National Opera; Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, and the Vienna State Opera. His carefully chosen roles range from Wolfram, Amfortas, Marke, Wotan, Orest, and Jochanaan to the title roles in Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.

Program

7 June, 20:00
Green Theater

Special project of the Odessa Classics and the Green Theater

Mikhail Shishkin and Alexey Botvinov
An Evening of Music and Literature

"Rachmaninov. First comes death, then comes life"

An outstanding writer of our time Mikhail Shishkin was born in Moscow in 1961. He is an author of novels “One Night Befalls Us All” ("Larionov’s Reminiscenses”), “The Taking of Izmail”, “Maidenhair”, “Pismovnik (Letter Book)”, literary and historical guidebook “Russian Switzerland”. His journalism and numerous works in German language arouse great interest as well.

Shishkin has been awarded Russian Booker Prize (2000), the Russian Bestseller Award (2005), Big Book Prize (2006, 2010). Many theatrical figures appeal to Shishkin’s prose. Plays, based on his prose had a great success in Moscow “Petr Fomenko Theater”, Moscow Art Theater School (МХТ), in Moscow Open  Theater “Most” and many others.

The writer has been living and working in Switzerland for many years already, where many great figures of Russian culture found themselves in forced immigration at the time. Among them was Sergei Rachmaninov.

Alexey Botvinov is widely regarded as one of the best interpreters of his music. In 2012 Alexey took a bold creative attempt to unite a novel by Mikhail Shishkin and works by Rachmaninow and Skryabin in a form of a theater performance. The play, as well as its further German-language version had well-deserved public acclaim.

8 June, 19:00
Odesa Philharmonic

Sebastian Knauer (piano)
Odessa National Philharmonic Orchestra
Hobart Earle (conductor)

Odessa public got to know high performing art of German pianist Sebastian Knauer at previous Odessa Classics Festivals. A true event in the music world was  a joint project of Knauer and German-Iranian composer Arash Safayan “Überbach”, performed  also in Odessa by Knauer and Berlin Chamber Orchestra. The performance has become a worldwide sensation and was awarded a prestigious ECHO KLASSIK Award as a project which extends the boundaries of classical music. In 2018-2019 “Überbach” has been performed in the best concert halls of the world and always with constant success. And here comes the second world premiere of a new project of Safayan and Knauer – fantasy for piano and orchestra “This is (not)Beethoven”. Interestingly, the world premiere of this work took place in the year when 250th anniversary of the great composer’s birthday was celebrated. Fantasy of Arash Safayan is a decent expression of our praising the genius, whose music accompanies the mankind on the way to peace and understanding.

The Odessa National Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1937 and throughout the Soviet era performed regularly at home under such conductors as  Nathan Rachlin, Yuri Temirkanov, Kurt Sanderling, Arvid Jansons, Mariss Jansons, and with such eminent soloists as David Oistrakh, Emil Gilels, Mstislav Rostropovich,  Nikolai Petrov.
With the independence of Ukraine, the orchestra’s status rose; in January of 1993 the Government of Ukraine formally awarded the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra federal status. The new status was acknowledgment of the orchestra’s dynamic progress during the preceding two years under new music director Hobart Earle. The orchestra became the first from Ukraine to cross both the Atlantic Ocean and the Equator. In the years since 1992, the orchestra and Hobart Earle have made a total of twenty one trips abroad to fifteen different countries, performing in such major concert halls as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Philharmonie in Cologne, the Beethovenhalle in Bonn, the Barbican Hall in London, the National Auditorium in Madrid, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Davies Hall in San Francisco and the General Assembly of the United Nations.
The OPOs series of CD recordings under Hobart Earle for label «ASV» and «Naxos».


Hobart Earle was born in Venezuela of American parents, Hobart Earle has earned a reputation on several continents as a dynamic and exciting conductor. He was recognized as one of 30 “Professionals of the Year” by Musical America Worldwide (2014).
Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, Hobart Earle has elevated the orchestra to a position of international prominence, unprecedented in the history of the organization, performing in such concert halls as the Musikverein (Vienna), the Philharmonie (Cologne), Barbican Hall (London), the National Auditorium (Madrid), Orchestra Hall in Chicago, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Carnegie Hall (New York) and the Kennedy Center (Washington), Davies Hall in San Francisco and the General Assembly of the United Nations.
He has led such orchestras as the Bilbao Symphony, Vienna Tonkuenstler, Noord-Nederlands Orkest in Holland, Odense Symfoniorkester in Denmark, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonica Siciliana and Orchestra della Toscana, Sinfonia Iuventus in Warsaw, Krakow and Silesian Philharmonic Orchestras, Athens State Symphony, Buffalo and Florida Philharmonics, North Carolina and Miami Symphony Orchestras, Taipei Symphony and such major Russian institutions as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Russian National Orchestra. In the opera pit, he has led productions with the Greek National Opera and the Mythos Opera Festival, and in the recording studio, has recorded with the Russian State Symphony and Odessa Philharmonic for Naxos and Toccata Records. His performance of Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony in Vienna’s Musikverein was recorded by the Austrian Radio live in concert, and awarded “Best Classical Album 2002” at the ‘JPFolks Music Awards’ in Hollywood, California. His recording of music by Myroslav Skoryk was chosen by Naxos CEO Klaus Heymann in the “Chairman’s Choice 2014 – Klaus Heymann’s Favorite Naxos Releases”.

Program

9 June, 19:00
Odesa Philharmonic

Zurich Chamber Orchestra
Daniel Hope (violin, artistic director)
Alexey Botvinov (piano)

Since 2007 Daniel Hope has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. The album of works by Alfred Schnittke performed by Daniel Hope and Alexei Botvinov was released February 2021 and was unanimously acclaimed by critics as a major creative event worldwide.

Daniel Hope, soloist and artistic director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, recently recorded with the orchestra a disc of serenades composed by great composers in different eras. Some of them will be played in all three of the orchestra's concerts at the ODESSA CLASSICS Festival.

Program

10 June, 19:00
Odesa Opera House

Zurich Chamber Orchestra
Daniel Hope (violin, artistic director)

The Zurich Chamber Orchestra is one of Europe's leading performing orchestras. It was founded in the 1940s and immediately attracted the attention of audiences across the globe. The orchestra has collaborated with internationally acclaimed composers and performers who were attracted by the high artistic standard of performing of classical and contemporary music.

In all, the orchestra has performed no fewer than 51 world  premieres and 215 works have been premiered in Zurich.
The orchestra is led by Daniel Hope, one of the most famous violinists in the world. Odessa audience were able to appreciate the brilliant skills of this performer at previous Odessa Classics festivals. Hope is a face of the largest record label Deutsche Grammophon, a seven-time winner of the prestigious ECHO Klassik award, the maestro has been nominated four times for a Grammy Award.

Hope is the musical director of two chamber orchestras, the Zurich Orchestra and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. Today we meet one of the finest chamber orchestras, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. At different times it has performed with Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, James Galway, Mischa Maisky, and many other illustrious musicians.

In 2017, the orchestra was awarded by the Echo Klassik for two CDs at once in the Klassik ohne Grenzen ("Classics without Borders") category.

Program

11 June, 19:00
Odesa Philharmonic

Zurich Chamber Orchestra
Daniel Hope (violin, artistic director)
Alexey Botvinov (piano)

The world-renowned artist and UNESCO Global Goodwill Ambassador Tan Dun, has made an indelible mark on the world’s music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical music, multimedia performance, and Eastern and Western traditions. A winner of today’s most prestigious honors including the Grammy Award, Oscar/Academy Award, Grawemeyer Award, Bach Prize, Shostakovich Award, and most recently Italy’s Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, Tan Dun’s music has been played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on radio and television.

Tan Dun was also commissioned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to write the Logo Music and Award Ceremony Music for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Tan Dun records for Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Opus Arte, BIS and Naxos. His recordings have garnered many accolades, including a Grammy Award (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and nomination (The First Emperor; Marco Polo; Pipa Concerto), Japan’s Recording Academy Awards for Best Contemporary Music CD (Water Passion after St. Matthew) and the BBC’s Best Orchestral Album (Death and Fire).

Program

24 June, 19:00
Odesa Opera House

Evgeny Kissin (piano)

Evgeny Kissin is a concert pianist and composer. He is one of the greatest contemporary musicians. Kissin made regular recital tours of Europe, America and Asia. He has performed with nearly all the leading orchestras of the world, under such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Myung-Whun Chung, Sir Colin Davis, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Valery Gergiev, Carlo Maria Giulini, Mariss Jansons, Herbert von Karajan, Dmitri Kitaenko, Jan Latham-Koenig, Emmanuel Krivine, James Levine, Sir Andrew Davis, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Georg Solti, Vladimir Spivakov, Yevgeny Svetlanov and Yuri Temirkanov. He has also performed chamber music with Martha Argerich, Mikhail Pletnev, Gidon Kremer, James Levine, Mischa Maisky, Thomas Quasthoff, Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman, Karita Mattila, Dmitry Hvorostovsky, Joshua Bell, Leonidas Kavakos, Natalia Gutman, Yuri Bashmet, Vladimir Spivakov, the Emerson String Quartet and others.

Program