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.
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NEWS
Prague Spring Closing Concert
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...
Semyon Bychkov opens 80th anniversary edition of Prague Spring
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...
Recording of Smetana’s Má vlast wins BBC Music Magazine Award
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...
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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.”
