Dmitry Sitkovetsky
Encyclopedia
Dmitry Sitkovetsky is a Russia
n violin
ist and conductor
.
, Azerbaijan
, to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky
and pianist Bella Davidovich
. His father died in 1958, when Sitkovetsky was just three years old and the family moved to Moscow where Dmitry entered the prestigious Moscow Conservatory. In 1977, aged twenty-two, he decided to leave the Soviet Union. In order to do this, he registered himself as mentally ill. Fortunately his plan worked and Dmitry arrived in New York City
on September 11, 1977, where he immediately began studying at the Juilliard School.
and after his emigration in 1977, at the Juilliard School
in New York. Sitkovetsky has performed as a soloist with a number of the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin, New York and LA Philharmonic Orchestras, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Concertgebouw Orchestra, all of the major London orchestras, NHK, Chicago, Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras. He has performed at a number of high-profile festivals including Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh, Verbier, Istanbul, Newport, and the IMG Tuscan Sun and Napa Valley Festivals.
Sitkovetsky also has a flourishing career as a conductor. In 1996, he was appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Ulster Orchestra
for five years, in 2001, was appointed Conductor Laureate, and from 2002-2005 held the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian State Orchestra. From 2006–2009, he was the Artist-in-Residence at the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon (Spain) a position that involved conducting, solo playing, touring, chamber music and masterclasses. In 2003, Sitkovetsky was appointed Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, a position he holds to this day. As a guest conductor, he has worked with leading orchestras including the London & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
s, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, BBC, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle and Dallas Symphony Orchestra
s, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Santa Cecilia and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
Sitkovetsky is also the founding director of the New European Strings Chamber Orchestra (NES CO), established in 1990, which is composed of distinguished string players from Eastern & Western Europe. Since his successful transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for string trio, he has transcribed more than 30 works mostly for string orchestra by Bach
, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Dohnanyi
, Bartók, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Schnittke. He has been a member of ASCAP since 1985 and his transcriptions are published by Doblinger, Sikorski and Schirmer.
Between 1983 and 2002 Sitkovetsky was the Artistic Director of a number of music festivals including the Korsholm Music Festival in Finland (1983–1993 and 2002), Seattle International Music Festival (1992–1997), “The Silk Route of Music” Festival in Baku, Azerbaijan (1999) and worked with a diverse range of artists such as Argerich, Ashkenazy, Bashmet, Davidovich, Harrell, Kissin, Maisky, Ohlsson, Penderecki, Repin, Schnittke and Shchedrin. In May 2007, Sitkovetsky was the Artist-in-Residence at the Bodensee Festival in Germany where he performed a wide variety of activities: soloist, conductor, chamber musician, recitalist, masterclasses and conducted the NES Chamber Orchestra in residence.
He has an active and varied recording career with an extensive discography which includes all the major violin concerti, numerous chamber music works as well as orchestral recordings that he’s conducted. In July 2010, Hänssler Classic released a boxed set of the complete Mozart Violin Sonatas with Antonio Pappano
and Konstantin Lifschitz. The same label, recently released Sitkovetsky’s string orchestra transcriptions of works by Shostakovich and Stravinsky with the NES CO as well as Piano Trios of Rodion Shchedrin
and Peteris Vasks
(Hänssler). His most recent concerto release is Dutilleux’s L'Arbre des Songes with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Mariss Jansons
(Concertgebouw Live). Forthcoming releases include a new recording of the Goldberg Variations
for String Trio to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the transcription.
Sitkovetsky’s increasing involvement in contemporary music shows a keen interest in performing new repertoire. He premiered the violin concerti written for him by John Casken
(1995) and Krzystof Meyer (2000) and often performs works by Dutilleux, Penderecki, Schnittke, Pärt
and Shchedrin who has written several works for Sitkovetsky both as violinist and conductor. In 2005, he performed two major works by John Corigliano
- his Second Symphony and the Red Violin Suite in a play/conduct concert. Sitkovetsky’s latest premiere was The Gifts of the Magi written by Jakov Jakoulov after O’Henry’s famous story and narrated by Peter Coyote
with the Greensboro Symphony. He also played a unique solo recital of contemporary music at the Verbier Festival in 2009 with a programme by Schedrin, Vasks, Auerbach and Ali-Zadeh.
Recent engagements include conducting the Komische Oper Berlin orchestra, Weimar Staatskapelle, Orchestre National de Lille, New Zealand, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, Macau Symphony as well as the Tenerife Symphony. Concerto engagements include the Czech Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Galicia Symphony, Vienna Symphony, Cincinnati Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Hamburg Philharmonic and the Russian State Orchestra. Recitals include Seattle, Brussels, Seville, Cape Town, London (Wigmore Hall) and performances in the London Philharmonic’s Schnittke Festival. Play/directing engagements included return invitations to the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and Orchestre National de Lille, the Komische Oper Berlin orchestra as well as the St Petersburg Philharmonic.
Future engagement highlights throughout Europe, USA and Asia include concerto engagements with the Seattle Symphony (Inkinen) and the Concertgebouw (Janssons), Royal Danish Opera Orchestra (Boder), conducting the London Philharmonic and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and play/directing the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Geidai Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra of New Russia, Minnesota Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, and the San Francisco Symphony’s prestigious New Year’s Eve concert.
Since 1987 he has resided in London
with his wife, Susan, and their daughter, Julia, who attends The Queen's College, Oxford.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
.
Early life
Dmitry Sitkovetsky was born in BakuBaku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
, to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky
Julian Sitkovetsky
Julian Sitkovetsky was a Russian-Ukrainian violinist.-Biography:Sitkovetsky was born in Kiev. He started violin lesson at age 4, first with his father, then with David Bertie at the Central School in Kiev. As a child prodigy, he was chosen to play for Jacques Thibaud at age 8...
and pianist Bella Davidovich
Bella Davidovich
Bella Mikhaylovna Davidovich is a Jewish Soviet-born American pianist.Davidovich was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, into a family of musicians and began studying piano when she was six. Three years later, she was the soloist for a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1939, she moved to...
. His father died in 1958, when Sitkovetsky was just three years old and the family moved to Moscow where Dmitry entered the prestigious Moscow Conservatory. In 1977, aged twenty-two, he decided to leave the Soviet Union. In order to do this, he registered himself as mentally ill. Fortunately his plan worked and Dmitry arrived in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on September 11, 1977, where he immediately began studying at the Juilliard School.
Biography
Dmitry Sitkovetsky has built up a successful career as a violinist, conductor, arranger, chamber musician & festival director. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, he grew up in Moscow studying at the Moscow ConservatoryMoscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
and after his emigration in 1977, at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
in New York. Sitkovetsky has performed as a soloist with a number of the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin, New York and LA Philharmonic Orchestras, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Concertgebouw Orchestra, all of the major London orchestras, NHK, Chicago, Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras. He has performed at a number of high-profile festivals including Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh, Verbier, Istanbul, Newport, and the IMG Tuscan Sun and Napa Valley Festivals.
Sitkovetsky also has a flourishing career as a conductor. In 1996, he was appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Ulster Orchestra
Ulster Orchestra
The Ulster Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Belfast, the only full-time professional orchestra in Northern Ireland. The orchestra plays the majority of its concerts in Belfast's Ulster Hall and Waterfront Hall...
for five years, in 2001, was appointed Conductor Laureate, and from 2002-2005 held the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian State Orchestra. From 2006–2009, he was the Artist-in-Residence at the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon (Spain) a position that involved conducting, solo playing, touring, chamber music and masterclasses. In 2003, Sitkovetsky was appointed Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, a position he holds to this day. As a guest conductor, he has worked with leading orchestras including the London & Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It tours widely, and is sometimes referred to as "Britain's national orchestra"...
s, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, BBC, San Francisco, St. Louis, Seattle and Dallas Symphony Orchestra
Dallas Symphony Orchestra
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra. It performs its concerts in the Meyerson Symphony Center in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, United States....
s, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Santa Cecilia and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic.
Sitkovetsky is also the founding director of the New European Strings Chamber Orchestra (NES CO), established in 1990, which is composed of distinguished string players from Eastern & Western Europe. Since his successful transcription of Bach’s Goldberg Variations for string trio, he has transcribed more than 30 works mostly for string orchestra by Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Dohnanyi
Dohnányi
Dohnányi is a Hungarian family name belonging to a notable family of politicians and musicians descended from composer Ernő Dohnányi. The addition of "von" was a personal choice made by Ernő as it was usual by Hungarian noble families not having a prädicate to indicate their nobility.* Ernő...
, Bartók, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Schnittke. He has been a member of ASCAP since 1985 and his transcriptions are published by Doblinger, Sikorski and Schirmer.
Between 1983 and 2002 Sitkovetsky was the Artistic Director of a number of music festivals including the Korsholm Music Festival in Finland (1983–1993 and 2002), Seattle International Music Festival (1992–1997), “The Silk Route of Music” Festival in Baku, Azerbaijan (1999) and worked with a diverse range of artists such as Argerich, Ashkenazy, Bashmet, Davidovich, Harrell, Kissin, Maisky, Ohlsson, Penderecki, Repin, Schnittke and Shchedrin. In May 2007, Sitkovetsky was the Artist-in-Residence at the Bodensee Festival in Germany where he performed a wide variety of activities: soloist, conductor, chamber musician, recitalist, masterclasses and conducted the NES Chamber Orchestra in residence.
He has an active and varied recording career with an extensive discography which includes all the major violin concerti, numerous chamber music works as well as orchestral recordings that he’s conducted. In July 2010, Hänssler Classic released a boxed set of the complete Mozart Violin Sonatas with Antonio Pappano
Antonio Pappano
Antonio Pappano is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a...
and Konstantin Lifschitz. The same label, recently released Sitkovetsky’s string orchestra transcriptions of works by Shostakovich and Stravinsky with the NES CO as well as Piano Trios of Rodion Shchedrin
Rodion Shchedrin
Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin is a Russian composer. He was one оf the leading Soviet composers, and was the chairman of the Union of Russian Composers from 1973 until 1990.-Life and Works:...
and Peteris Vasks
Peteris Vasks
Pēteris Vasks is a Latvian composer.Vasks was born in Aizpute, Latvia, into the family of a Baptist pastor. He trained as a violinist at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, as a double-bass player with Vitautas Sereikaan at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and played in several...
(Hänssler). His most recent concerto release is Dutilleux’s L'Arbre des Songes with the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Mariss Jansons
Mariss Jansons
Mariss Ivars Georgs Jansons is a Latvian conductor, the son of conductor Arvīds Jansons. His mother, the singer Iraida Jansons, who was Jewish, gave birth to him in hiding in Riga, Latvia, after her father and brother were killed in the Riga Ghetto...
(Concertgebouw Live). Forthcoming releases include a new recording of the Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
for String Trio to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the transcription.
Sitkovetsky’s increasing involvement in contemporary music shows a keen interest in performing new repertoire. He premiered the violin concerti written for him by John Casken
John Casken
John Casken is an English composer, born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England.Casken read music at the University of Birmingham, studying composition and contemporary music with John Joubert and Peter Dickinson. He then went on to study in Poland with Andrzej Dobrowolski on a Polish government...
(1995) and Krzystof Meyer (2000) and often performs works by Dutilleux, Penderecki, Schnittke, Pärt
Part
Part may refer to:*Part *Part , a relation in mereology*Part , the music played or sung by an individual instrument or voice*Parts , a 1997 children's book by Tedd Arnold...
and Shchedrin who has written several works for Sitkovetsky both as violinist and conductor. In 2005, he performed two major works by John Corigliano
John Corigliano
John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...
- his Second Symphony and the Red Violin Suite in a play/conduct concert. Sitkovetsky’s latest premiere was The Gifts of the Magi written by Jakov Jakoulov after O’Henry’s famous story and narrated by Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
with the Greensboro Symphony. He also played a unique solo recital of contemporary music at the Verbier Festival in 2009 with a programme by Schedrin, Vasks, Auerbach and Ali-Zadeh.
Recent engagements include conducting the Komische Oper Berlin orchestra, Weimar Staatskapelle, Orchestre National de Lille, New Zealand, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, Macau Symphony as well as the Tenerife Symphony. Concerto engagements include the Czech Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Galicia Symphony, Vienna Symphony, Cincinnati Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Hamburg Philharmonic and the Russian State Orchestra. Recitals include Seattle, Brussels, Seville, Cape Town, London (Wigmore Hall) and performances in the London Philharmonic’s Schnittke Festival. Play/directing engagements included return invitations to the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and Orchestre National de Lille, the Komische Oper Berlin orchestra as well as the St Petersburg Philharmonic.
Future engagement highlights throughout Europe, USA and Asia include concerto engagements with the Seattle Symphony (Inkinen) and the Concertgebouw (Janssons), Royal Danish Opera Orchestra (Boder), conducting the London Philharmonic and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and play/directing the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Geidai Philharmonic, Symphony Orchestra of New Russia, Minnesota Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, and the San Francisco Symphony’s prestigious New Year’s Eve concert.
Since 1987 he has resided in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with his wife, Susan, and their daughter, Julia, who attends The Queen's College, Oxford.
External links
- IMG Artists
- Greensboro Symphony Orchestra page with information about Sitkovetsky
- Inspired Minds page
- NY Times article
- Biography