Dubai, UAE
The InClassica International Music Festival returns to Dubai on Sunday 12th February 2023, with a Grand Opening featuring Japanese violinist Fumiaki Miura alongside the Kazakh State Symphony Orchestra, led by Italian conductor Massimiliano Caldi. The concert will open with Romantic composer Max Bruch's most famous work, his Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, which was premiered in 1866 and has remained incredibly popular ever since. The programme shall then move on to Alexey Shor’s Phantasms for Violin and Orchestra, a concerto in three movements which perfectly exhibits the evocative and mellifluous style that the contemporary composer has become renowned for. Following a brief intermission, the orchestra returns with Tchaikovsky’s beloved Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, which has gone on to transcend the realm of classical music, with its passionate ‘love theme’, in particular, featuring in a host of different media throughout the years. Finally, the evening comes to an end with Johannes Brahms’s Hungarian Dances No. 1 and No. 5. These compositions were so immediately popular that they proved to be the most profitable of the composer’s entire career, with the works, which are primarily based on Hungarian themes, going on to be arranged for a vast variety of instruments and ensembles, in testament to their enduring appeal.
Massimiliano Caldi (Milano 1967), graduated in piano, composition and orchestra conducting has a big international experience in the felds of symphonic music, opera, operetta and ballet as well as an attention on contemporary music and on the revival of the 19th century opera. he stands out for his high professional preparation and for his bright and linear directorial style.
Among the last commitments of the 2020/2021 season, the debut of Il Don Bucefalo at the Baltic Opera in Gdańsk, the recorded concert at the Teatro alla Scala with I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala, the Polish premiere of the cello concert of Castelnuovo-Tedesco with Silvia Chiesa and the inauguration of the 60th Łańcut International Festival. Moreover, during the summer 2021, in Italy he conducted the Roma 3 Orchestra in a tour and he also performed at the closing evening of the frst edition of the International Festival Accordi Musicali. In Poland, he performed at the Mozart Festival and at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw for the Polish Music Competition.
Winner of the frst prize at “G.Fitelberg” International Competition (1999), Caldi i s the Principal Conductor of the "A. Malawski" Precarpathian Philharmonic of Rzeszów. He had been President of the Jury of the International Piano Competition Massarosa - IX and X edition (2018 and 2019), teacher of the Florence Conducting Masterclass (2015-2017), Principal Conductor and Artistic Consultant of "St. Moniuszko" Koszalin Philharmonic(2014-2017), Artistic Director of Silesian Chamber Orchestra (Katowice, 2006-2010) and Principal Conductor of "Milano Classica" Chamber Orchestra (1998-2009).
In the last ten years he took tournées in Israel, Oman, U.S.A. , Chile, Brasil, Germany, Austria, Russia and Turkey.
During the 2018 year, in opera feld, he conducted the prologue from Mefstofele by Boito (Gdansk, June 2018) Cavalleria Rusticanaby Mascagni (Rzeszow June 2018) and Bastiano e Bastiana by Mozart (Oliwa August 2018).
In the recent past, he conducted Gluck's "Orphee et Euridice" and Puccini's "La Bohème" at Bologna Opera House (Italy), Verdi's "Nabucco" and Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" at Poznań Opera House (Poland) and he took part at three editions of "Festival della Valle d'Itria" of Martina Franca (Italy) with rediscovered italian masterpieces of the XIX century like Cagnoni's "Don Bucefalo" and "King Lear" and an unusual French version (1907) of R. Srauss' "Salome".
He took part in the past at "Festival Terre Verdiane" in Busseto (Italy) with "Rigoletto" and "La Traviata" and he conducted Verdi's "Il Trovatore" at Szeged Opera House, (Hungary) at the end of the Nineties.
He conducted Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" at Cicuito Lirico Lombardo (Italy) at Pavia, Cremona, Brescia and Como Opera Houses.
For the same cycle, he conducted Nino Rota's "I due timidi" and "La Notte di un nevrastenico" at Vittorio Veneto and Como Opera Houses (Italy). In Poland, at Cracow Polish Music Festival in 2011 he conducted Poniatowski's "Pierre De Medicis", a XIX century "grand opera", in the frst world performance, after rediscovering.
In symphonic feld he went back to St. Petersburg with the Philharmonic Orchestra in March 2020 and on the podium of Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali in July 2019. He conducted among the others Berliner Konzerthaus Kammerorchester, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Orchestra Sinfonica "Giuseppe Verdi", Orchestra dell'Arena di Verona, Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino, Orchestra del Teatro Massimo di Palermo.
In Poland he had been invited by International Festivals and he appears regularly on the podium of the most important Philharmonic and symphonic orchestras like, for example, Sinfonia Varsovia, Warsaw Polish Radio Symphonic Orchestra and the "Sinfonia Iuventus" Orchestra at the hall of the National Philharmonic in Warsaw and at Studio Lutoslawski S-1, the Szymanowski Philharmonic Orchestra of Krakow, the Beethoven Academy Orchestra of Krakow and the Philharmonics of Lodz, Bydgoszcz, Torun, Olsztyn... and many others.
Caldi has recorded for Acte Préalable, the CD Raul Koczalski - Piano concertos (January 2018) and for Sony Classical, the CD Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Riccardo Malipiero Cello concertos (April 2018). Massimiliano Caldi is the only Italian who won the Gazzetta Italia Prize - 2018 edition for having distinguished in the promotion of Italian music in Poland and the Polish one in Italy.
In 2020, Maestro Caldi discussed his PhD thesis entitled "Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni: fdelity to the text or performance tradition?" At the Musical University "F. Chopin" in Warsaw, on which he has worked in the last 3 years, consulting among other things some manuscripts at the "S. Cecilia" Conservatory in Rome and at the Stanford University Music Library in California.
Born in Tokyo, Fumiaki Miura starts his musical education with Tsugio Tokunaga at his hometown Conservatory before moving to Vienna to carry on his studies with Pavel Vernikov and Julian Rachlin. Since aged 16, Fumiaki is mentored and guided by Pinchas Zukerman. In 2009 he was awarded First Prize at the prestigious Joseph Joachim Hannover International Violin Competition, being the youngest winner ever.
His 23/24 season is highlighted by solo performances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, ADDA Sinfónica de Alicante, Orchestra del Teatro Goldoni di Livorno, and the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Turkey. In addition, he will continue his chamber music activity with his partner pianist Itamar Golan in Italy, as well as with Varvara and Jonathan Roozeman, making his debut at the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical in Madrid.
Miura has performed with orchestras including Los Angeles Philharmonic, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, NDR Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Wiener Kammerorchester, Prague Philharmonia, Mariinsky Theater, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, NAC Orchestra Ottawa, Orchestre de Chambre Lausanne, Warsaw Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokio Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Japan Philarmonic, Orchestre Nationale du Capitole de Toulouse, BBC Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Düsseldorf Symphoniker, hr-Sinfonieorchester or Hong Kong Sinfonietta, among others. Fumiaki Miura plays under the baton of conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Gustavo Dudamel, Pinchas Zukerman, Krzysztof Penderecki, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Kazushi Ono, Hannu Lintu, Jakub Hrůša, Vasily Petrenko, Josep Pons, Patrick Hahn, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Stéphane Denève, Kristjan Järvi, Tatsuya Shimono, Terry Fisher, and Rafael Payaré.
Regular invitations to international music festivals include the Miyazaki International Music, Ravinia Festival, Julian Rachlin and Friends, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Musique de Menton, Gyeonggi Chamber Music Festivalnd Menuhin Festival Gstaad. Fumiaki has also performed at the Auditorium du Louvre and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Auditorio in Madrid, Palau de la Música in Barcelona, Elbephiharmonie in Hamburg and at the Wigmore Hall in London.
Miura has collaborated with artists like Yuri Bashmet, Itamar Golan, Sunwook Kim, Mischa Maisky, Maria João Pires, Lawrence Power, Julian Rachlin, Torleif Thedéen, Nobuyuki Tsujii, Jonathan Roozeman, Varvara or Pinchas Zukerman.
Since 2018 he has been artistic director of Suntory Hall ARK Classics and has just completed the 2023 edition together with artists such as Nobuyuki Tsujii, Jonathan Roozeman, Young Soung and Sergei Nakariakov. In the summer of 2023, Fumiaki toured Japan - as soloist and conductor - with ARK Sinfoniettta, an orchestra formed especially for ARK Classics with eminent young artists. Months earlier, he performed Mozart's Symphonie Concertante with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and Pinchas Zukerman at the baton.
In 2022 Fumiaki was also elected "Forbes 30 under 30 Asia" after being elected "Forbes 30 under 30 Japan" in 2019. In 2024, to celebrate his 15th anniversary after his debut, Fumiaki will perform complete cycles of Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Japanese pianist Kazune Shimizu at Suntory Hall.
His discography includes Prokofiev violin sonatas with the pianist Itamar Golan for Sony Japan, as well as Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky violin concertos with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Hannu Lintu released by Avex-Classics label.
Miura performs on the Guarneri del Gesu 1732 violin “Kaston” kindly loaned by Crystco Inc. and its CEO, Mr. Hikaru Shimura.
