Schumann and Beethoven

Acclaimed by both musicians and audiences for his dynamic leadership and exhilarating interpretations, Dima Slobodeniouk stands among the most respected conductors today.

Slobodeniouk collaborates with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, and NHK Symphony Orchestra.
Soloists with whom he has collaborated include Leif Ove Andsnes, Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Khatia Buniatishvili, Seong-Jin Cho, Isabelle Faust, Kirill Gerstein, Barbara Hannigan, Håkan Hardenberger, Alexandre Kantorow, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Beatrice Rana, Yuja Wang, and Frank Peter Zimmermann.

Known for his musical expertise and interpretive depth, Slobodeniouk is also an acclaimed recording artist. Recent notable recordings include Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Nicolas Altstaedt (Alpha) which received an ICMA Award. His latest release on the BIS label features Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, Symphony in C and Symphonies of Wind Instruments recorded with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, where he served as Music Director. Other releases on this label include works by Kalevi Aho with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, winner of the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award, a subsequent disc of Aho’s Sieidi and Fifth Symphony, as well as a disc featuring music inspired by the Finnish folk epic, the Kalevala. For the Ondine label, Slobodeniouk has recorded works by Perttu Haapanen and Lotta Wennäkoski with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Slobodeniouk studied with Ukrainian violinist Olga Parkhomenko at Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, graduating in 2001. It was there that he also took up his conducting studies with Leif Segerstam, Jorma Panula, and Atso Almila.

Dima Slobodeniouk served as Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia from 2013 to 2022, Principal Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra from 2016 to 2021, and the Artistic Director of the Sibelius Festival. Together with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, he built an extensive and highly acclaimed media library of live concert recordings in recent years. A passionate believer in widening opportunity, he launched a conducting initiative during his tenure, giving aspiring conductors podium time with a professional orchestra and the opportunity to work with him on selected repertoire.

A wonderfully versatile musician, Carolin Widmann’s activities span the great classical concerti, new commissions specially written for her, solo recitals, a wide variety of chamber music and, increasingly, period instrument performances, including play/direction from the violin.

Widmann was awarded the Bayerischer Staatspreis for music in 2017, honouring her individuality and exceptional musicianship. Widmann was also the recipient of an International Classical Music Award (Concerto category) for her critically acclaimed recording of both Mendelssohn’s and Schumann’s Violin Concertos with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, released in August 2016 by ECM and which Widmann herself conducted from the violin.

Named ‘Musician of the Year’ at the International Classical Music Awards 2013, Widmann has enjoyed collaborations with some of the world’s leading orchestras include the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Orchestre National de France, Tonhalle Zurich, Czech Philharmonic, Vienna Radio Symphony, Bayerische Rundfunk, and Sydney Symphony, with distinguished conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Roger Norrington, Edward Gardiner, Sakari Oramo, Vladimir Jurowski, Marek Janowski, Christoph von Dohnányi and Pablo Heras-Casado. She has also appeared at such widely known festivals as Berliner Festspiele, Salzburg, Lucerne, Festival d’ Automne, Ravinia Festival and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. During the 2014-15 season, Widmann was Artist-in-Residence at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt, which included numerous recital and chamber performances and a play/direct project on gut strings with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. That season also saw Widmann perform the world premiere of a new violin concerto written for her by Julian Anderson, at the Southbank Centre with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski.

Following the release of Widmann’s critically acclaimed Mendelssohn/Schumann Concerto’s disc, the 2017/18 season saw her give performances with the BBC Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Bayerische Rundfunk, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Residentie Orkest, and RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, as well as recitals at the Ultraschall Berlin, Bozar Brussels, in Salzburg and Fribourg and chamber music projects in Vienna, Schweinfurt, Neumarkt and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival.

Highlights of Widmann’s 2018-19 season include invitations to the Berliner Philharmoniker, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, RSB Orchester Berlin, London Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana and the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig. She will also perform the world premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Violin Concerto No 2 at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and will perform the work in Europe with Orchestre de Paris and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Alte Oper under Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

A prolific chamber musician, Carolin appears regulary at the leading concert halls including Wigmore Hall, Bozar in Brussels, Festspielhaus Baden Baden and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. This season she will embark on major recital tours of North and South America, Italy and she will return to the Wiener Konzerthaus to perform an all Beethoven recital as part of their Beethoven celebrations.

Her discs of Schubert and Schumann sonatas received critical acclaim including the “Diapason d’Or” and the German Record Critics’ Award. In 2006, Carolin Widmann’s debut CD, “Reflections I,” was named “Critics’ Choice of the Year” by the German Record Critics’ Award Association. Her recording of Morton Feldman’s concerto “Violin and Orchestra” with Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Emilio Pomárico was released in 2013.

Widmann has a special interest in connecting with other art forms; she has performed in choreographed concerts by dancer Sasha Waltz (at the Mozartwoche Salzburg and the opening week at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg), played a solo recital in a football stadium in Frankfurt at a project curated by architect Daniel Libeskind, and has designed concert programmes to be performed at museums such as the Museum Ludwig Cologne and the Museum of Modern Art MMK in Frankfurt. In March 2019, she will be part of a project by performance artist Marina Abramović.

Carolin Widmann was born in Munich and studied with Igor Ozim in Cologne, Michèle Auclair in Boston and David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.

Since 2006, she has been professor of violin at Leipzig’s University of Music and Theatre “Felix MendelssohnBartholdy”.
Carolin Widmann plays a G.B. Guadagnini violin from 1782.