Andrey Boreyko & Ilya Gringolts

As chief conductor and artistic director of the tradition-steeped Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrey Boreyko nevertheless stands for a modern orientation of the repertoire. In addition to the concerts in Warsaw, he toured Poland and the USA with the orchestra this season. There their paths crossed with the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra in Florida, where Boreyko is also principal conductor, a position he will relinquish in 2022 after eight years. Among the significant projects he initiated in the USA was the juxtaposition of the ballet music of Igor Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” and “The Firebird” with contemporary artworks by the Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave, who in turn was inspired by the Ballets Russes. Andrey Boreyko also commissioned a number of works (including to Giya Kancheli) and combined them with art by Picasso and Calder as part of an exhibition.

Andrey Boreyko has also conducted extensive tours of the Russian State Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala as well as concerts by the Seoul Philharmonic, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, Sinfonia Varsovia, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg. In recent years he has been invited as a guest conductor from Sydney to Toronto and in numerous US cities, as well as in Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Vienna, Stockholm, Bamberg, Munich, Florence, London, Paris, Zurich and Rotterdam. He has been a guest conductor with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) several times since 2000, most recently planned for 2020, which, however, could not take place due to corona.

Andrey Boreyko has repeatedly championed contemporary postmodern music, including a performance in Stockholm in 2017 for the Russian-Swedish composer Victoria Borisova-Ollas. Works by Arvo Pärt, Valentyn Sylvestrov, Dmitri Shostakovich, Witold Lutosławski and Mikolaj Górecki have appeared on CD under his direction, including the Symphony No. 4 by the latter, after Andrey Boreyko conducted the world premiere with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and then the American premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

Earlier in Andrey Boreyko’s career, he held principal conducting positions with the Jena Philharmonic, the Hamburg Symphony, the Bern Symphony, the Düsseldorf Symphony, the Winnipeg Symphony and the Orchestre National de Belgique.

The Russian violinist Ilya Gringolts convinces with highly virtuosic playing and subtle interpretations. As a sought-after soloist, he dedicates himself not only to the large orchestral repertoire but also to contemporary and rarely performed works. He has premiered compositions by Peter Maxwell Davies, Christophe Bertrand, Bernhard Lang, Beat Furrer and Michael Jarrell. In addition, his artistic interest is in historical performance practice; virtuoso repertoire by Paganini, Locatelli or Leclair adorn his concert programmes. In 2022, he premiered his arrangement of Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations”. Ilya Gringolts has performed with renowned orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. This is his first time as a guest with the RSB.

Play Conduct projects have recently brought him together with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Bern and the Ensemble Resonanz. For his recording of Locatelli’s L’Arte del violino, which won the “Diapason d’Or” and “Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award”, he also conducted the Finnish Baroque Orchestra from the podium. As a chamber musician, he works with artists such as Yuri Bashmet, Itamar Golan, Peter Laul, Nicolas Altstaedt, Andreas Ottensamer and Jörg Widmann and is also primarius of the Gringolts Quartet, founded in 2008, which has since enjoyed success with performances at the Salzburg Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Lucerne Festival and the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, among others. In summer 2020, Ilya Gringolts founded the “I&I Foundation for the Promotion of Contemporary Music” together with Ilan Volkov, which awards commissions to young composers. A first series of short solo works was already created in 2021/2022.