PROJECTS

Essays, musing and thoughts from Semyon Bychkov…

“I already noticed a few decades ago that birthdays that end with a zero don’t mean anything. Life afterwards is just as it was before, and the changes take place in between. I remember talking with my father, who was nearing the end of his life. ‘Dad’, I said, ‘I still feel like I’m fifteen. Isn’t that odd?’ And my father answered: ‘No. It’s the same with me.’

In November 2022, Semyon Bychkov turned 70. His creative life to date has involved close musical relationships with organisations in many countries. Two in particular – one a global conservatoire and the other a world-class orchestra – have played a significant role in his work in recent years.

Maestro Bychkov’s educational work in the last 14 years has been focused on his position as the Otto Klemperer Chair of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music. During this time, he has become a revered and much-loved artistic mentor and practitioner through his teaching and concerts with the Academy’s Symphony Orchestra. He sits with Henry Wood, John Barbirolli and Colin Davis as the Academy’s most significant conductors in the last century with major performances both in the Academy and the Royal Festival Hall (including Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in 2017). He conducted the main orchestral concert – Mahler’s 3^rd Symphony – to celebrate the Academy’s Bicentenary at the Royal Festival Hall in June 2022.

In 2018, Maestro Bychkov became Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic and has since forged a remarkable relationship with the Academy and, indeed, a legacy in a very short time. Typically, he has sought to bring the fruits of his two associations to the greater benefit of each institution. This was spectacularly realised in a concert in the Duke’s Hall of the Academy in March 2018 to mark the British celebration of the Centenary of the first Czechoslovak Republic, in which the Czech Philharmonic performed alongside students of the Academy. It was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and in the presence of the Czech Prime Minister and British Deputy Prime Minister.

The Czech Philharmonic’s first major undertaking with now Chief Conductor and Music Director Semyon Bychkov – The Tchaikovsky Project – will see an illustrious culmination in 2019. Over the past seasons, since the project’s inception in 2015, the orchestra and conductor have been delving into exhaustive exploration of Tchaikovsky’s music. The first two recordings in the project, released on Decca in 2016 and 2017, have received wide critical acclaim and the year 2019 sees a series of Tchaikovsky residences in Tokyo, Vienna and Paris as well as at home in Prague. In August this year, Decca Classics will release the complete boxset for The Tchaikovsky Project: all of the composer’s symphonies, the three piano concertos with soloist Kirill Gerstein, Romeo & Juliet, Serenade for Strings and Francesca da Rimini. The boxset marks the label’s first Tchaikovsky cycle in nearly 40 years and the first in high-definition 96K/24-bit sound.

“The Tchaikovsky Project first originated when I was asked if I would be interested recording Tchaikovsky’s symphony cycle with the Czech Philharmonic” comments Semyon Bychkov. “It took me about thirty seconds to realise that the idea was absolutely fascinating. I thought the combination of the Czech Philharmonic being what it is, and the orchestra’s country having its Western traditions and belonging in the West as well as the East, would create a very interesting approach to express the spirit of Tchaikovsky’s music. One that would be neither purely Russian, nor purely Western, but in a way a mixture of the two. And I think this is what makes the project so fascinating because at the end of the day, as is the case with all great music, the music of Tchaikovsky is universal.”