Dubai, UAE
Audiences in Dubai are in for a memorable evening on Saturday, 12th April 2025, as the 14th InClassica International Music Festival, organised by SAMIT Event Group, presents a concert held under the Patronage of the Embassy of Switzerland in the UAE & the Kingdom of Bahrain, which will be featuring two of the biggest names in the contemporary music world. Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich, an Exclusive Deutsche Grammophon Artist since the age of 15, will be joined on the stage of Dubai Opera by the Franz Schubert Filharmonia, conducted by none other than the living legend of the classical music world, Mikhail Pletnev. The evening opens with Alexey Shor’s "Phoenix Fantasy" for violin and symphony orchestra, a virtuosic composition that showcases the violin’s full range of expression. Following this, Lozakovich will perform Shor’s "Verdiana" for violin and orchestra, a tribute to Giuseppe Verdi that re-imagines his famous melodies in Samba, Bossa Nova, and Tango styles. After the interval, the concert will finish with Mikhail Pletnev’s 14 Mémoires Musicales, a profoundly intimate piece for orchestra inspired by Pletnev's personal life memories.
Pianist, conductor, and composer, Mikhail Pletnev is one of the most respected and influential artists of the era. His prodigious talent as a pianist has earned widespread acclaim ever since the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, where he won First Prize at the age of 21. An invitation to perform at a 1988 diplomatic summit in Washington led to Pletnev’s friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev and a lifelong commitment to dismantling barriers through the universal language of music.
In 1990, Pletnev formed the Russian National Orchestra – the first independent orchestra in Russia’s history. Under his leadership, the RNO achieved recognition as one of the world’s great orchestras.
Over thirty years later, Pletnev has renewed his commitment to artistic freedom with his founding of the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra, named after the celebrated pianist, conductor, and composer whose own career inspired audiences from all corners of the globe.
Pletnev’s performances and recordings have shown him to be an outstanding interpreter of an extensive repertoire, both as a pianist and conductor. His recordings have earned numerous prizes, including a 2005 Grammy Award for his own arrangement of Prokofiev’s Cinderella. He received Grammy nominations for Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes (2004) and the Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev Piano Concertos No. 3 (2003). His critically acclaimed album of Scarlatti’s Sonatas (Virgin/ EMI) received a 1996 Gramophone Award, and his recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos (Deutsche Grammophon) was named “Best of 2007” by the NewYorker.
Pianist, conductor, composer, and cultural leader – all are significant facets of Mikhail Pletnev’s remarkable life. Yet with his characteristic humility, he insists that he is, simply, a musician.
Violinist Daniel Lozakovich’s majestic music-making has left critics and audiences spellbound. “Perfect mastery. An exceptional talent,” observed *Le Figaro* after a performance at the Verbier Festival, while the *Boston Globe* praised the “poise, tonal purity, and technique to spare” during his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons at the Tanglewood Festival in July 2017.
Daniel was born in Stockholm in 2001 and began playing the violin when he was almost seven. He made his solo debut two years later with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov in Moscow.
At the age of 15, Lozakovich signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and in 2018 released his debut album of Bach’s two violin concertos in collaboration with the Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks, along with the solo *Partita No. 2*. The album reached number 1 in the all-music category of the French Amazon charts and topped the classical album charts in Germany.
“None but the Lonely Heart,” Lozakovich’s second album, was released in 2019. Dedicated to Tchaikovsky, it includes the Violin Concerto, recorded live with the National Philharmonic of Russia and Vladimir Spivakov. *Grammophone* magazine named this recording as the “Top choice” spanning 70 years of the best recordings of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.
Lozakovich’s third album, released in 2020, focuses on the Beethoven Violin Concerto, recorded live with the Münchner Philharmoniker under Valery Gergiev. The project was released both as an audio album and e-video during the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, a project significant to Lozakovich, who considers the concerto one of the greatest ever written.
On *Spirits*, his latest 4th Deutsche Grammophon recording, Lozakovich celebrates some of his forebears in the hope of passing on their style and repertoire to younger generations. Partnered by pianist Stanislav Soloviev, Lozakovich performs favorite encores by Elgar, Debussy, Falla, Gluck, Brahms, and Kreisler.
Lozakovich studied at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe with Professor Josef Rissin from 2012 and graduated with a Master’s degree in 2021.
He plays the “ex-Sancy” 1713 Stradivari, generously loaned by LVMH / Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
The Franz Schubert Filharmonia has enjoyed a great reception from the audience since its inception, both for its artistic quality and for the relevance of its programmes.
Formed by a new generation of the best musicians in the country who perform under the inspired direction of Tomàs Grau, Music Director and Founder, the orchestra has collaborated with such soloists as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Maria João Pires, Joshua Bell, Mischa Maisky, Midori, Ivo Pogorelich, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Rudolf Buchbinder, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Stephen Kovacevich, Gautier Capuçon, Sabine Meyer, Steven Isserlis, Paul Lewis, Alexei Volodin, Roberto Alagna, Mark Padmore, Seong-Jin Cho, Alice Sara Ott, Javier Perianes, Ainhoa Arteta, Asier Polo, Leticia Moreno, Pablo Ferrández, Judith Jáuregui and Iván Martín.
The Franz Schubert Filharmonia has also worked with such conductors as Josep Pons, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Antoni Ros Marbà, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Salvador Mas, Pablo González, Edmon Colomer, Paul Agnew, Guillermo García Calvo, Thomas Rösner, Virginia Martínez, Jordi Mora, Josep Caballé Domenech, Marzio Conti and Salvador Brotons, among others.
Read MoreThe orchestra has performed in such venues as the Carnegie Hall in New York, Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, Gran Teatre del Liceu, L’Auditori de Barcelona, Auditorio de Zaragoza, Palacio Euskalduna in Bilbao and Palau de les Arts in Valencia, and has made concert tours in the United States, Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
The Franz Schubert Filharmonia performs its subscription seasons in Barcelona, Tarragona and Lleida, and since 2009 has had the honour of being the resident orchestra of El Vendrell, the birthplace of the maestro Pablo Casals.
The orchestra has recorded several albums, among which we can highlight Alba Eterna, an opera by the composer Albert Guinovart and produced by the Sony Classical label, and Die Romantische Seele with the pianist Judith Jáuregui, produced by the label ARS Produktion, winner of the International Classical Music Awards, and nominated for the Opus Klassik Awards.
