Dima Slobodeniouk - Conductor
Lauded for his deeply informed and intelligent artistic leadership, Dima Slobodeniouk has held the position of Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica
de Galicia since 2013, which he combines with his more recent positions as Principal Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Sibelius Festival following his appointment in 2016.
Linking his native Russian roots with the cultural influence of his later homeland Finland, he draws on the powerful musical heritage of these two countries. He works with orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Chicago, Houston and Baltimore as well as Sydney Symphony Orchestras.
Summer 2018 sees Slobodeniouk give his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Joshua Bell at the Tanglewood Music Festival. Further highlights are his debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Rotterdam Philharmonic, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien at the Musikverein, Bayerisches Staatsorchester Munich, Minnesota, Seattle and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra as well as West Australian Symphony Orchestra. He returns to WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne with Yefim Bronfman, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Dresdner Philharmonie, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras.
In Lahti, Slobodeniouk opens the 2018/19 season with Joseph Canteloupe’s Chants Auvergene and Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, before he takes the orchestra on tour to China including Shanghai Arts Festival. In Galicia he launches the new season with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Shostakovich Symphony No 11. Other soloists he works with include Nicolas Altstaedt, Leif Ove Andsnes, Khatia Buniatishvili, Vilde Frang, Vadim Gluzman, Johannes Moser, Baiba Skride, Simon Trpceski, Yuja Wang and Frank Peter Zimmermann.
Slobodeniouk’s discography was recently extended by recordings of works by Stravinsky with Ilya Gringolts and Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia (BIS) and works by Aho with Lahti Symphony Orchestra (BIS), the latter received the BBC Music Magazine award 2018. He has previously recorded works by Lotta Wennäkoski with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Ondine) and works by Sebastian Fagerlund with Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (BIS).
Moscow-born Dima Slobodeniouk studied violin at Moscow Central Music School under Zinaida Gilels and J. Chugajev, the Middle Finland Conservatory as well as the Sibelius Academy under Olga Parhomenko. He continued his Sibelius Academy studies with Atso Almila also under the guidance of Leif Segerstam and Jorma Panula, and has also studied under Ilya Musin and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Striving to inspire young musicians of the future, Slobodeniouk has worked with students at the Verbier Festival Academy over recent years and furthermore began a conducting initiative with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, providing an opportunity for students to work on the podium with a professional orchestra.