Schumann and Beethoven

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.

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.