Ilan Volkov was born in Israel in 1976 and began his career at the age of 19, when he was named Young Conductor in Association with the Northern Sinfonia. In 1997, he became assistant to Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2003, Ilan Volkov became the youngest chief conductor appointed to a BBC orchestra, when he was named chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He had conducted that ensemble for the first time in 1998, at the age of 22. His interpretations of the Classical and Romantic repertoire are acclaimed for their structural clarity and rhythmic vitality, and he is passionate in his support for contemporary composers. Ilan Volkov looks forward to upcoming debut performances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Munich Philharmoniker and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He has received repeated invitations from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. He conducted Eugene Onegin at the San Francisco Opera in 2004 and, in 2006, Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He takes to the podium of the RSB for the first time with a highly sophisticated performance of Richard Strauss’ “Burleske”, featuring Marc-André Hamelin as a soloist. The concert will be recorded for CD.