Dresden Philharmonic: 14-22 April 2024

A stroke of luck concert hall

In 2017, the new concert hall was opened in the Kulturpalast in the middle of Dresden’s old town. It is a stroke of luck for the Dresden Philharmonic, for the city and for the entire music world. Internationally, it is now considered an insider’s tip, and the people of Dresden also feel at home in its 1800 coral-red seats and surrounded by the “Dresden sound” of their orchestra. Ideal conditions for the Dresden Philharmonic to further shape its sound ideal, to profile programs and to be there for everyone who loves music. In the romantic repertoire, the orchestra has retained its own warm, rounded sound. It also excels in tonal and stylistic flexibility for both Baroque and Viennese Classical music as well as modern works.

One hundred and fifty years

Self-confident and hungry for music: in 1870, Dresden citizens took the initiative and founded the history of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra. They gave the Stadtkapelle the opportunity to hold concerts in their trade house and were themselves attentive audiences. Philharmonic concerts were held regularly from 1885 until the orchestra gave itself its present name in 1923. In the first decades, composers such as Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák and Strauss stood at the podium with their own works. Paul van Kempen shaped it into a first-class ensemble from 1934. After him, Kurt Masur (also honorary conductor since 1994), Marek Janowski, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and Michael Sanderling, among others, left their mark on the orchestra. The orchestra promotes top young musicians in the Kurt Masur Academy.

Loyal audience

Interested, informed and, above all, loyal. Hardly any other German orchestra is as connected to its audience as the Dresden Philharmonic. It is thanks to this loyalty that the orchestra has survived threatening crises: in 1923, during the first major economic crisis after the First World War; in 1933, when the Nazis came to power; in 1944/45, after the closure of all concert halls and the bombing of the city. And even in the years after 1989/90, it was their audience that remained loyal to the Dresden Philharmonic. It was put to the test with the Corona pandemic, and it was here that it became clear how important the orchestra is to them. For this, it was chosen by the cultural magazine concerti as the audience of the year 2020.

phil_youngPeople

Exploring classical music on Sunday mornings with Malte Arkona, experiencing the orchestra with the school class, being able to try out an instrument yourself – young people with their curiosity about music are important to the Dresden Philharmonic. This is reflected in the approximately 35 family and school concerts each year, as well as the partnership with a Dresden elementary school and, of course, more and more digital offerings. The Dresden Philharmonic is constantly breaking new ground online, whether with streaming, digital concert introductions, a short film series about the team behind the scenes, the podcast for young people or a 360-degree tour of the Kulturpalast.

Listening again and again

In 1937, the orchestra began recording records. Today, the Dresden Philharmonic’s discography lists nearly 330 works. Recent recordings include a CD cycle conducted by Michael Sanderling featuring the complete symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich and Ludwig van Beethoven (Sony Classical). With principal conductor Marek Janowski, the Dresden Philharmonic has recorded Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana” and Puccini’s “Il Tabarro” (PentaTone). And the principal conductor and orchestra used the 2020/2021 Corona break to record Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” Schubert’s “Great” Symphony in C major and its “Unfinished,” and Schumann’s four symphonies.

Download the full biography on the link above.

With his in-depth knowledge and experience of a wide range of symphonic and operatic repertoire, he is regularly invited by renowned orchestras and opera houses around the world such as the Orchestre de Paris, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Danish National Symphony, the NDR Elbphilharmonie and Radio Philharmonie, the Dresden Philharmonie, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, as well as the main Russian orchestras such as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.

With more than thirty operas in his repertoire, recent opera engagements have included The Pique

Dame and Eugene Onegin at the Opernhaus Zürich, Iolanta at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Prince Igor at the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, working with distinguished directors and singers such as D. Tcherniakov, B. Kosky, E. Nikitin, A. Netrebko, I. Abdrazakov, O. Borodina, L. Davidsen, P. Mattei.  As a guest conductor, he regularly performs at the Mariinsky Theatre.

Since 2017 Kochanovsky is also guest of the prestigious Verbier Festival where he conducts an opera in concert form every year: from Eugene Onegin in 2017, passing for Rigoletto and a symphonic program with soloists Lucas Debargue and Mikhail Pletnev in 2018, to Die Zauberflöte in 2019 and Hansel and Gretel in 2022.

In addition to the classical repertoire, Kochanovsky has a strong interest in rarely performed works and new compositions. Over the last few seasons, he has conducted rare gems as Ligeti’s Requiem, Scriabin-Nemtin’s Prefatory Action “Mysterium”, Kodály’s Psalmus Hungaricus, Shostakovich’s unfinished opera “The Gamblers”; Myaskovsky’s “Silence”, Weinberg’s Symphony No. 21 “Kaddish”; and works by living composers such as Dean, Fedele, Broström, Tawfiq, Visman, Campogrande, Martinsson, Golijov, Thorvaldsdottir, Tarnopolski, Rääts, Vasks.

Stanislav Kochanovsky attended the Glinka Choir School in his hometown of St. Petersburg before going on to graduate with honours at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire, where he studied choral conducting, organ and opera-symphonic conducting.

He is deeply grateful for these formative years in Russia: he was Chief Conductor of the State Safonov Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2007 he started his collaboration with the Mikhailovsky Theatre where, from the age of 25, he was given the great opportunity to conduct more than sixty opera and ballet performances.

Download the full biography on the link above.

Recognized for her innovative programmes, her first album on Warner – Songbird with pianist Kenny Broberg, scheduled for release on 24 March 2023 – spans from Franz Schubert, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann to Nikolai Medtner, Richard Strauss and Nadia Boulanger. In upcoming concerts, she performs the Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and Barber concertos as well as Haydn’s G-Major and Mozart’s D-Major concertos and Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, while this season’s recital programmes include works by George Gershwin, William Grant Still, Dolores White and Fazil Say, alongside standard violin repertoire.

In the coming months, Maria Ioudenitch makes her debuts with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (at Berlin’s Philharmonie), MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Münchner Symphoniker and returns to Kansas City Symphony. Recent engagements have taken her to the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, the Mariinsky Orchestra, Lithuania Chamber Orchestra and Utah Symphony, while her growing list of conductors includes names like Andrey Boreyko, Alpesh Chauhan, Kevin John Edusei, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Andrew Manze, Ruth Reinhardt and Hugh Wolff. She is also an active chamber musician and will take part in the chamber music tours of the Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute with Miriam Fried in March and Marlboro Music Festival with Christoph Richter in November 2023.

Maria began playing violin with Gregory Sandomirsky at the age of three and continued her studies with Ben Sayevich at the International Center for Music in Kansas City and Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi at the Curtis Institute of Music. She completed her master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Miriam Fried, and has been mentored by Sonia Simmenauer this past year as part of Simmenauer’s new initiative, zukunfts.music. She is currently in the Professional Studies programme at the Kronberg Academy, working with Christian Tetzlaff.

Maria plays a violin by the Brothers Amati from ca. 1624, courtesy of Guarneri Hall NFP and Darnton & Hersh Fine Violins in Chicago. 

Download the full biography on the link above.