DMITRY SITKOVETSKY
A renaissance man and a magnetic creative force, Dmitry Sitkovetsky has made a considerable impact on every aspect of musical life and has been successful as a performer, creator and facilitator for over four decades. His enviable career as a violin soloist is documented in several dozen recordings of all major concertos and a wide selection of chamber repertoire. His discography includes works by Prokofiev, Bartok, Shostakovich, as well as Dutilleux’s L’Arbre des Songes,recorded with the London Symphony, Philharmonia, and the Royal Concertgebouw orchestras, in collaboration with Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Mariss Jansons, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Nevile Marriner, and other legendary musicians.
One of the highlights of the 2018 summer festival season was the world premiere of a new transcription: Sarasate’s Navarra Fantasy, commissioned by the Verbier Festival for an all-star line-up of musicians, featuring Pinchas Zukerman, Leonidas Kavakos, Maxim Vengerov, Vadim Repin, Lisa Batiashvili, Tabea Zimmermann, Mischa Maisky, and Dmitry Sitkovetsky himself. This performance, marking the 25th anniversary of the festival, was broadcast worldwide on Medici.TV.
As the Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (GSO), Dmitry Sitkovetsky has conducted over 100 different concerts with soloists like Pinchas Zukerman, Yefim Bronfman, Emmanuel Ax, Garrick Ohlsson, and Lynn Harrell. Additionally, he has performed dozens of chamber programs in the Rice Toyota “Sitkovetsky & Friends” series, which he created in 2004. This season’s playbill features Barry Douglas, Jamie Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Andres Diaz and Lukas Geniusas, who will play on this distinguished series together with Maestro Sitkovetsky and the best GSO musicians.
In addition to his guest conducting engagements and performances as Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Dmitry Sitkovetsky is looking forward to his Siberian tour that will bring him to Novosibirsk as the Artist-in-Residence at the Vadim Repin’s Trans-Siberian Festival, as well as to Krasnoyarsk and Tyumen. A new recording project with Lukas Geniusas is in the works, as an homage to Fritz Kreisler and Sergei Rachmaninov, one of the most legendary duets in the history of classical music.
His passion for inspiring the new generation of musicians is the catalyst for Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s developing relationship with the venerable Sphinx Organization, dedicated to transforming lives by promoting diversity in the arts. Having served on the jury of the national Sphinx competition at the beginning of 2018, Maestro is committed to working with Sphinx Virtuosi, the ensemble of the organization’s most outstanding players, as they prepare for their tour of the United States.
Highlights of the previous seasons include a tour of Tuscany of Orchestra della Toscana of Florence with Maestro Sitkovetsky performing both as the conductor and the soloist; an ongoing collaboration with the Slovenian Philharmonic, which has brought him to the Ljubljana International Festival for three consecutive summers with five different programs; the return to the Taipei Symphony Orchestra; an all-Bach solo violin recital at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena; headlining the Malta International Music Festival, alongside Grigory Sokolov, Maxim Vengerov and other stars; the inauguration of a new chamber music series in New York City, presented at Columbia University by the Aspect Foundation for Music and Arts; a month-long tour of Japan; the debut TED talk on the power of curiosity; the launch of his first book Dmitry Sitkovetsky. Dialogues; a collaboration with musicians of the Staatskapelle Dresden at the Shostakovich Festival in Gohrisch; and three sold-out performances of a multi-genre and multimedia work inspired by Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale at the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow and the Music Hall in St. Petersburg, featuring live music, street dance, physical theater, poetry, and animation.
Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s name has become synonymous with the art of transcription. His iconic orchestra and string trio versions of the Goldberg Variationshave taken on a life of their own, enjoying regular performances and acclaimed recordings by the world’s top musicians. Inspired by its unqualified success, Maestro went on to arrange over 50 works by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Schnittke. In December 2015, Dmitry Sitkovetsky unveiled his transcription of Stravinsky’s Le baiser de la fée, commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and premiered by Augustin Hadelich at Carnegie Hall, effectively adding a new concertante piece for violin and orchestra to Stravinsky’s legacy.
Driven by desire to share the fascination of music with the widest possible audience, Mr. Sitkovetsky created a compelling series of 11 episodes for Russian national television profiling the world’s most extraordinary musicians: Evgeny Kissin, Barbara Hendricks, Mischa Maisky, Bella Davidovich, Sir Neville Marriner, Yefim Bronfman, Gary Graffman, Sir Antonio Pappano, and others. Addressing them as a life-long friend and a musical collaborator, Mr. Sitkovetsky achieved unprecedented candor and intimacy in these conversations. The series are available worldwide on Medici.tv.
As a conductor, Mr. Sitkovetsky has held artistic leadership positions with the Ulster Orchestra, the Russian State Orchestra, and Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon. In 1990, he founded the New European Strings orchestra (NES), bringing together the most distinguished string players from the top European ensembles for special touring and recording projects, most recently at the Enescu Festival. As a guest conductor, Mr. Sitkovetsky has collaborated with San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, London and Royal philharmonic orchestras, NDR Hannover, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Moscow Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, China Philharmonic, and Shanghai Symphony, among others.
Given his ability to turn any project into a highly anticipated artistic event, Mr. Sitkovetsky has been invited to create, develop and lead a number of festivals throughout his career, most notably the Korsholm Music Festival in Finland in the 1980’s, the Seattle International Music Festival and the Silk Route of Music Festival in Baku in the 1990’s, as well as the Festival del Sole in Tuscany, where his NES orchestra was in residence from 2003 to 2006.
