NEWS

This year, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic will give both the opening and closing concerts of the Prague Spring International Festival, currently celebrating its 80th anniversary. Since the inaugural Festival in 1946, the Festival has always opened with a...

Next week, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic open the 80th anniversary edition of Prague Spring with a performance of Smetana’s Má vlast.  Their recording of the work was last month awarded BBC Music Magazine’s Orchestral Recording 2025 and, as Semyon Bychkov...

On April 23rd BBC Music Magazine announced the winners of its 2025 Awards, presenting the Orchestral Award to the Czech Philharmonic’s recording of Smetana’s Má vlast conducted by Chief Conductor and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov and recorded in January 2021 during...

50 years ago to the day I left Russia in search of freedom. I was able to take my music scores with me, amongst which were creations of Shostakovich. How symbolic it is then that the 5th Symphony of Shostakovich is featured on the program of tonight’s concert at...

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...

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...

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...

Winning ‘Orchestra of the Year’ in the 2024 Year of Czech Music – celebrated by arts organisations across the Czech Republic every decade since Bedřich Smetana’s 100th birthday in 1924 – is especially poignant.  The Orchestra’s contribution to the Year of Czech Music...

Today, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic present a new recording of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphonies 7, 8 and 9, coupled with the composer’s concert overtures In Nature’s Realm, Carnival and Othello. The album is part of the 2024 Year of Czech Music. Dvořák’s...

Today, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic mark Bedřich Smetana’s bicentenary (2nd March 1824) with the release of Má vlast, released by PENTATONE. The recording of Má vlast is the Czech Philharmonic’s first release in 2024’s Year of Czech Music, a major...

Today, Semyon Bychkov with the Czech Philharmonic continue their acclaimed Mahler cycle with the composer’s First Symphony, one of the most evocative and colourful symphonic debuts in the history of the genre. Released internationally by PENTATONE this will be the...

The innate musicality of the Czech people could not fail but to give birth to a vast legacy of musical creations that, in turn, need interpreters to bring them to life.  Whatever the complexities of the world, there will always be a place for music that speaks...

Excerpt from David Conway's interview with Semyon Bychkov in The Critic. Semyon Bychkov, a Russian-born and internationally famed conductor, and familiar figure in London opera houses and concert halls, recently made a forceful...

Today PENTATONE announced that Mahler’s Resurrection, the third disc in the Czech Philharmonic’s Mahler Cycle will be released on Good Friday, Friday 7 April. Conducted by Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech...

Semyon Bychkov returns to the UK in the New Year to conduct Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 with the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, culminating in a lunch-time concert on 27 January live streamed via RAM’s YouTube channel here. On 21 February, he gives the first...

“My record of the year is the Czech Philharmonic and its Music Director Semyon Bychkov’s Mahler Symphony No. 5, for an orchestral sound so sumptuous that you could eat it for Christmas dinner. Continuing their cycle of Mahler symphonies, they achieve a fine balance in...