Dubai, UAE
Prepare yourself for a special evening on Wednesday 7th February, as the 2024 InClassica International Music Festival, organised by SAMIT Event Group. welcomes Canadian violinist James Ehnes, a two-time Grammy Award Winner, Gramophone Award and JUNO Award recipient, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Member of the Order of Canada, and awardee of the 2017 Royal Philharmonic Society Award. Taking to the stage alongside the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and UK conductor John Warner, the musicians will open the concert with the Overture to Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, a comic opera in three acts first performed in 1866, with music heavily influenced by Czech folk tunes. Next comes Composer-in-Residence Alexey Shor’s Violin Concerto No. 1 ‘Seascapes’, a four-movement composition that adds to a long line of works inspired by the sublime beauty of the sea, featuring haunting melodic lines as well as complex technical passages that promise to carry audiences on a musical journey of their own. Warner and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra shall then bring the evening to a close with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s resounding Symphony No. 5, an epic composition written in 1888 that has gone on to become one of the composer's most popular works, and is widely regarded as an excellent example of his trademark musical style.
Highlights of 2024/25 include John's debuts with the Athens State Orchestra and Franz Schubert Filharmonia, a return to the Berliner Symphoniker at the Philharmonie in Berlin, a new production of Puccini's Tosca with Oxford Opera and concerts with his own Orchestra for the Earth. The past season saw debuts with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Slovak State Philharmonic, Berliner Symphonieker and Armenian Symphony Orchestra, and in previous seasons he has also conducted orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic and worked with soloists such as Thomas Hampson, James Ehnes, Wu Wei and Camille Thomas.
2024/25 will be his fourth season as Music Director of Oxford Opera, with whom he has conducted several productions including most recently La Traviata and Die Zauberflöte. He has also conducted at Glyndebourne, Palau de les Arts Valencia and Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in repertoire ranging from Janáček to Puccini to Mozart. As a frequent guest conductor with Spectra Ensemble he has put a special emphasis on underperformed operas by women composers, leading critically acclaimed productions of works by Ethel Smyth and Amy Beach.
Read MoreHis pioneering work with Orchestra for the Earth, which he founded in 2017, takes him around Europe with a wide variety of concerts that bring together music and nature, collaborating with leading artists, scientists and charities to raise awareness about the climate and environmental crises.
A committed advocate of contemporary music, John has been invited to commission and conduct world premieres at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, Het Concertgebouw and, most recently, a week-long residency at the Beijing Music Festival which included four world premieres and five Chinese premieres of contemporary classics by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Huang Ruo, Sir George Benjamin and Messiaen.
John honed his craft as assistant to many of the world’s leading conductors, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Karina Canellakis, Robin Ticciati and Edward Gardner, working with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Dresden Staatskapelle, Wiener Symphoniker, Les Siècles and others.
He studied music at the University of Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours in 2016 and an MSt with Distinction in 2017. He also writes on music, with frequent publications in the Wagner Journal and an upcoming book published by Routledge. He is a regular guest lecturer at the Curtis Institute and Johns Hopkins University in the US.
