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
Marking his fifth season as Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic in 2022-23, Semyon Bychkov’s season started in Prague with the official concert to mark the Czech Republic’s Presidency of the EU and continued at the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival with concert performances of Dvořák’s Rusalka, later conducting the work a new production of the work at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
In recent seasons, the focus of Bychkov’s work with the Czech Philharmonic has turned to the music of Gustav Mahler with performances of the symphonies at its home in Prague, on tour and ultimately on disc. Performances during the season feature Mahler symphonies at the Edinburgh International Festival, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Mahler Festival, and in Paris, Luxembourg, Graz, Vienna, Budapest and Milan. PENTATONE’s complete Mahler cycle with Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic launched in 2022 with Mahler’s Symphony Nos. 4 and has subsequently seen the release of Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 2.
CONCERT SCHEDULE
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NEWS
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...
Czech Philharmonic Named Gramophone’s ‘Orchestra Of The Year’
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...
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FEATURED VIDEO
FEATURED ALBUM
Mahler: Symphony No. 2
Pentatone releases Mahler Symphony No. 2, together with maestro Semyon Bychkov and Czech Philharmonic, in April 2023.
Personal Contemplation on Overcoming Death
After critically-acclaimed recordings of Mahler’s Fourth and Fifth Symphony, the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov continue their Pentatone Mahler cycle with a rendition of the composer’s Second, nicknamed “The Resurrection”. They are joined by soprano Christiane Karg, alto Elisabeth Kulman and the Prague Philharmonic Choir. Starting with a funeral march, passing through the introspective alto song “Urlicht” and ending in choral bliss and euphoria, Mahler’s Second is a deeply spiritual and personal contemplation on the secret of life and the possibility of overcoming death. For Bychkov, the symphony “shows the life cycle in all its struggles: suffering, joy, irony, humour, love and doubt.”
