Maestro's Corner

Dmitry Sitkovetsky
Music Director

Maestro Sitkovetsky is one of a rare breed of artists whose career successfully manifests itself in a number of creative ways. In 2003, the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (GSO) welcomed Dmitry Sitkovetsky, world-renowned violinist and conductor, as its new Music Director.

As a violinist, Sitkovetsky works with the very best orchestras in Europe, Japan and the USA and performs with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Kurt Masur, Sir Neville Marriner, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Yuri Temirkanov and Michael Tilson-Thomas. Among his chamber music partners are Michel Dalberto, Bella Davidovich, Pavel Gililov, Julian Rachlin, Gerard Caussé, David Geringas, Lynn Harrell and Antonio Pappano.

He is a regular guest of the most important festivals in Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh, Verbier, Ravinia, by "Mostly Mozart" in New York and by the BBC Proms. Dmitry Sitkovetsky has been a highly successful festival director over many years at the Korsholm Music Festival (Finland), in Umea (Sweden), Baku (Azerbaijan), Seattle (USA) and together with Antonio Pappano as music directors in Cortona at the Tuscan Sun Festival (Italy).

Since 1990, Dmitry Sitkovetsky has developed a flourishing conducting career. Between 1996 and 2001, he was Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Ulster Orchestra, which he toured in Europe and the Far East. During the 2003-04 season, he began his position as Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra. He also serves as Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian State Symphony in Moscow and conducts orchestras regularly throughout Europe and the United States. Among the soloists with whom he has collaborated are Renee Fleming, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Martha Argerich, Horatio Gutierrez, Maxim Vengerov, Elmar Oliveira, Yuri Bashmet and Lynn Harrell.

Dmitry Sitkovetsky is the founding director of the New European Strings Chamber Orchestra which performs at international festivals and in venues throughout Europe and the United States. Soloists who have appeared with the NES CO are Barbara Hendricks, Evgeny Kissin, Bobby McFerrin, Sergei Nakariakov and Vadim Repin.

Since his successful transcription of Bach´s Goldberg Variations for string trio 20 years ago, Sitkovetsky has transcribed works of Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Dohnanyi, Bartok, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Schnittke, mostly for string orchestra. He has been a member of ASCAP since 1985, and his transcriptions are published by Doblinger, Sikorski and Schirmer’s.

Sitkovetsky has an active and varied recording career which includes all the major violin concerti, numerous chamber music works, as well as orchestral works as conductor. In the Spring of 2005, a new CD with his transcriptions for string orchestra of works by Shostakovich and Stravinsky was released by the Edition Haenssler with the NES CO and Sitkovetsky. Furthermore, at the end of 2005, Haenssler will release a recording of Trios by Shostakovich and Mieczyslaw Weinberg, which Dmitry Sitkovetsky plays with David Geringas (Cello) and Jasha Nemtsov (Piano).

Dmitry Sitkovetsky is increasingly involved in contemporary music. His latest CD presents chamber music by Rodion Shchedrin with the composer at the piano. He has premiered the violin concerti written for him by John Casken and Krzystof Meyer and often performs works by Penderecki, Pärt, Schnittke and Shchedrin, who has written several works for Sitkovetsky both as violinist and conductor. In the summer of 2005, he performed two major works by John Corigliano – his Second Symphony and the Red Violin Suite - where he was both the violinist and the conductor.

Dmitry Sitkovetsky was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, but grew up in Moscow where he studied at the Moscow Conservatory – and after his emigration in 1977 – at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. Since 1987, he has resided in London with his wife and daughter.