AWARD-WINNING MUSIC NIGHT
Slovak Philharmonic
Orchestra
Orchestra
Dubai, UAE
Join us on Friday 27th May for an evening with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Daniel Raiskin. The programme includes works by Beethoven, Schumann and Dvořák, and features the First Prize-winner at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and prize-winner at the ARD, Feuermann and Khachaturian competitions, Romanian cellist Andrei Ioniță. The InClassica International Music Festival is proudly presented by SAMIT Event Group.
“Daniel Raiskin is clearly a musician of sensibility, well versed in his craft; a further example perhaps of one last great gift of the old Soviet Union, the rigour and distinction of its conducting schools” (by David Gutman, Gramophone)
A son of a prominent musicologist, Daniel Raiskin grew up in St. Petersburg. He attended the celebrated conservatory in his native city and continued his studies in Amsterdam and Freiburg. First focusing on viola, he was inspired to take up the baton by an encounter with the distinguished teacher Lev Savich. In addition, he also took classes with Maestri such as Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, Milan Horvat, Woldemar Nelson und Jorma Panula. Raiskin, who cultivates a broad repertoire, often looks beyond the mainstream in his strikingly conceived programs.
From the 2020/2021 season Daniel Raiskin is the Chief Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in Bratislava. In addition, he is Music Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra since August 2018 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra from season 2017/18.
The 2021/22 season includes guest conducting appearances with Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow and Orquesta Clássica Santa Cecilia Madrid.
With the Winnipeg Symphony in May 2022 he will undertake a European tour with appearances at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, De Doelen in Rotterdam and Tivoli in Utrecht among others. Raiskin served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife 2017-18, Chief Conductor of both, the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz (2005-2016) and of the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Lódz (2008-2015). His regular guest appearances include the Athens State, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Iceland Symphony, Japan Century Symphony, Malmö Symfoni Orkester, Mariinsky Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Osaka Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, San Antonio Symphony, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Symphony, Stavanger Symphony, Swedish Chamber and the Tonkünstler orchestras.
His appearances in opera productions include Carmen, Shostakovich’s The Nose and Mozart’s Don Giovanni among others.
Daniel Raiskin is also relentlessly committed to sharing his knowledge and passion with young musicians around the world. He devotes his time regularly to working with youth orchestras in a.o. Canada, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Russia and South Africa. Among the major soloists with whom he has appeared are Emanuel Ax, Renée Fleming, Nelson Freire, Martin Fröst, Alban Gerhardt, Vadim Gluzman, Natalia Gutman, Kari Kriikku, Simone Lamsma, Lang Lang, Francois Leleux, Jan Lisiecki, Alexei Lubimov, Tatjana Masurenko, Albrecht Mayer, Daniel Müller-Schott, Olli Mustonen, Steven Osborne, Julian Rachlin, Benjamin Schmid, Julian Steckel, Anna Vinnitskaya and Alexei Volodin. Recent recordings include Mahler Symphony No. 3 and Shostakovich Symphony No. 4 with the label AVI, both to great critical acclaim. His recording with cello concertos by Korngold, Bloch and Goldschmidt with Julian Steckel and the label AVI received an Echo Klassik Award in 2012. Other recent recording projects include a Louis Glass Symphony cycles and a concerto cycle with the entire concertos and rhapsodies by Aram Khachaturian, both with the label CPO, Lutoslawski’s vocal-instrumental works with the label Dux and a recording of Alexander Tansman’s Isaie le Prophète and Psaumes with the label World Premiere Recordings.
The Gold Medal-winner at the 2015 XV International Tchaikovsky Competition, the phenomenal young cellist Andrei Ioniță was called “one of the most exciting cellists to have emerged for a decade” by the prestigious Times of London. He was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2016-18 and was the Symphoniker Hamburg’s artist-in-residence for the 2019-20 season. A versatile musician focused on giving gripping, deeply felt performances, Andrei has been recognized for his passionate musicianship and technical finesse.
Andrei made his U.S debut in 2017 with recitals in Chicago and Washington, D.C., and gave his New York debut recital in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. Highlights of the previous two seasons have included concertos with the Münchner Philharmoniker (Valeriy Gergiev), Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Kent Nagano), BBC Philharmonic (Omer Meir Wellber and John Storgårds), Danish National Symphony (Christian Kluxen), Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Karl-Heinz Steffens), San Diego Symphony (Case Scaglione), Yomiuri Nippon Symphony (Sylvain Cambreling) and BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Ainars Rubikis); he has given recitals at Konzerthaus Berlin, Elbphilharmonie, Zurich Tonhalle, LAC Lugano, and L’Auditori in Barcelona, as well as at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein, Verbier and Martha Argerich Festivals. Andrei’s debut album on Orchid Classics combined a Brett Dean world-premiere with Bach and Kodály, prompting Gramophone to declare him “a cellist of superb skill, musical imagination and a commitment to music of our time.”
Before winning the Tchaikovsky Competition, Andrei won First Prize at the Khachaturian International Competition in June 2013; in September 2014, he won Second Prize and the Special Prize for his interpretation of a commissioned composition at the International ARD Music Competition. In 2014, he received Second Prize at the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann in Berlin.
Andrei was born in 1994 in Bucharest and began taking piano lessons at the age of five before receiving his first cello lesson three years later. He studied under Ani-Marie Paladi in Bucharest and under Jens Peter Maintz at the Universität der Künste Berlin. A cholarship recipient of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, Andrei performs on a cello made by Giovanni Battista Rogeri from Brescia in 1671, generously on loan from the foundation.
THE SLOVAK PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA was established in 1949. Two highly reputed, internationally acclaimed personalities, Václav Talich (Principal Conductor, 1949 – 1952) and Ľudovít Rajter (1949 – 1976, and the orchestra’s Artistic Director until 1961), stood at the orchestra’s birth. Other chief conductors who have played an instrumental role in the orchestra’s musical evolution include Tibor Frešo, Ladislav Slovák, Libor Pešek, Vladimir Verbitsky, Bystrík Režucha and Aldo Ceccato. Between 1991 and 2001 the role of Chief Conductor and Music Director was held by Ondrej Lenárd. In the 2003/2004 season Jiří Bělohlávek acted as Artistic Director. In 2004 Vladimír Válek became Chief Conductor, and was succeeded by Peter Feranec in 2007 – 2009. From 2009 – 2016 the French conductor Emmanuel Villaume was the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and from 2017 until 2020, the British conductor James Judd. Leoš Svárovský (from 2007 – 2018), Rastislav Štúr (from 2011 – 2019) and Petr Altrichter (for the 2018/2019 season) have been Permanent Guest Conductors of the Slovak Philharmonic. From the 2020/2021 season Daniel Raiskin became Chief Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra.
Among the many guest conductors who have worked with the Slovak Philharmonic over the years, international personalities like János Ferencsik, Witold Rowicki, Václav Smetáček, Karel Ančerl, Franz Konwitschny, Arvīds Jansons, Václav Neumann, Hermann Abendroth, Antonio Pedrotti, Sir Eugene Goossens, Sir Malcom Sargent, Roberto Benzi, Kurt Masur, Sir Charles Mackerras, Carlo Zecchi, Serge Baudo, Claudio Abbado, Kurt Sanderling, Zdeněk Košler (who, thanks to his longstanding fruitful collaboration with the orchestra, was awarded the honorary title of ‘Chief Conductor in memoriam’ in 1996), Riccardo Muti, Karl Richter, Kirill Kondrashin, Leif Segerstam, Alain Lombard, Sergiu Celibidache, Thomas Sanderling, Oskar Danon, Mario Rossi, Neeme Järvi, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Evgeny Svetlanov, Mariss Jansons, Christoph von Dohnányi, Dmitri Kitayenko, Otmar Suitner, James Conlon, Valery Gergiev, Alexander Rahbari, Fabio Luisi, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Peter Schreier, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Ralf Weikert, Miltiades Caridis, Pinchas Steinberg, Peter Keuschnig, Tomáš Hanus, Jakub Hrůša, Juraj Valčuha, Tomáš Netopil, Ion Marin, Pavel Baleff, George Pehlivanian, Jun Märkl, Ilan Volkov, Wayne Marshall, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Alan Buribayev must be mentioned, as well as composers and artists of own works like Jean Martinon, Krzysztof Penderecki a Aram Khachaturian.
The orchestra has made numerous recordings for radio, television and the music publishers OPUS, Supraphon, Panton, Hungaroton, JVC Victor, RCA, Pacific Music, Naxos and Marco Polo. The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra regularly gives guest performances on leading European stages and at festivals. In the course of its numerous tours abroad, the Slovak Philharmonic has performed in nearly every European country, as well as in Cyprus, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, the USA and Oman.
One of the most important events of the 2019/2020 season, which had to be ended prematurely due to the coronavirus pandemic, was a trio of concerts by the SPh at the Bratislava Music Festival with the conductors James Judd, Juraj Valčuha and Pinchas Steinberg, a special concert to commemorate the Milan Rastislav Štefánik Year, gala concerts to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Slovak Philharmonic, and the 30th Anniversary Concert of the Velvet Revolution.
The planned SPh concert tour to South Korea and Japan, which should have taken place this season, has been moved to 2023 as a result of the overall situation in the world.
