Following acclaimed performances with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and with the students of London’s Royal Academy of Music, and Vienna’s University of Music and the Performing Arts (where he was awarded the Medal of Honour for his concerts with the Webern Symphony Orchestra) Semyon Bychkov closed the 12/13 season by marking Wagner’s bi-centenary with a “compelling” (The Guardian) “special cherishable” (The Times) performance of ‘Tristan und Isolde’ at the BBC Proms, and then a concert performance of the second act at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival. He opens the new orchestral year with the Munich Philharmonic, conducting their opening subscription concerts of the season, and taking them to the Grafenegg and Enescu (Bucharest) Festivals.
“This was theatre of the mind, which under Semyon Bychkov’s inspired conducting, achieved a Beckett-like depth of human and archetypal expression. […] His conducting combined a sure sense of pace and discreet pressure with a superbly controlled volatility that you felt deepened your relationship with music’s acutely realised psychology. It was both magisterial and fiercely personal – as though the obsession-inducing score was being played for you…”
Classical Source, July 2013