SEMYON BYCHKOV
Chief Conductor & Music Director – Czech Philharmonic
Otto Klemperer Chair of Conducting – Royal Academy of Music
Günter Wand Conducting Chair – BBC Symphony Orchestra
BIOGRAPHY
For 2024’s Year of Czech Music, Semyon Bychkov’s programmes centred on Dvorak’s last three symphonies, the concertos for piano, violin and cello, and the trilogy of overtures “Nature, Life and Love”. In addition to conducting in Prague’s Rudolfinum, Bychkov and the Orchestra took the all-Dvořák programmes to Korea and across Japan with three concerts in Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall. Later, in spring, an extensive European tour took the programmes to Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium, and France and, at the end of 2024, the Year of Czech Music culminated with three concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall. As well as featuring Dvorak’s three concertos, the programmes included three poems from Smetana’s Ma vlast, Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 and Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass for which the Orchestra was joined by the Prague Philharmonic Choir. Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic launched 2024’s Year of Czech Music with the release – on Smetana’s 200th birthday – of Smetana’s Má vlast.
NEWS
Mahler No. 3 on Pentatone
The Czech Philharmonic’s Mahler cycle, conducted by Chief Conductor and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov, continues in March with the release of Mahler Symphony No. 3 with mezzo-soprano, Catriona Morrison and the Women of the Prague Philharmonic Choir. Symphony No. 3...
Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic European Tour
No music for Semyon Bychkov is more essential or closer to the bone than Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. In January 1974 it was the work that he chose for his exam at the Leningrad Conservatory and, in January 1985 the piece he chose for his debut with the Berlin...
Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall
For the culmination of 2024’s Year of Czech Music, Semyon Bychkov will conduct three concerts at Carnegie Hall in the first week of December with the Czech Philharmonic. Each concert will feature one of Dvořák’s three concertos - for cello, violin and piano – with...
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FEATURED ALBUM
Dvořák: Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 ,9
Pentatone releases Antonín Dvořák’s Symphonies 7, 8 and 9
The album is part of the 2024 Year of Czech Music. Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” has been part of Semyon Bychkov’s repertoire since the 80’s when he emigrated to the United States. He first conducted the work with the Czech Philharmonic in 2015 when he returned to conduct the Orchestra. Also featured on the 2-CD release is Dvořák’s overture cycle, Nature, Life and Love composed between Symphony No. 8 and Symphony No. 9. Although, each work in the cycle, In Nature’s Realm, Carnival and Othello has a clear mood and narrative, sharing a distinctive melodic idea, they are also powerfully symphonic.
