© Konrad Cwik
The ensemble with the unusual name was initiated during Poland’s EU Presidency in 2011. It has dedicated itself to fostering positive change in the cultural and social development of the countries of Eastern Europe and Southern Caucasus through enterprises of the highest artistic quality. It considers itself a “laboratory of civic education, cooperation and understanding”. Organized by the Polish Adam Mickiewicz Institute, the I, Culture Orchestra brings together young musicians from Poland with young musicians from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and the Ukraine. Its first tour during the Polish EU Presidency took the orchestra to London, Brussels, Madrid and Berlin in 2011. In 2012 this was followed by performances in Kiev, Chisinau, Minsk and Tbilisi; 2013 saw the orchestra tour several Scandinavian countries, performing under the baton of the Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits for the first time. The debut of the I, Culture Orchestra at Young Euro Classic in 2015 forms part of a tour featuring concerts in Poland, the Ukraine, Georgia and Spain.
www.orchestra.culture.pl
Konzerthaus, Berlin
Journalist and TV Presenter
© Sussie Ahlburg
The Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits, born in 1976 in Kiev as the son of conductor Ivan Karabits, has multiple connections with Berlin. Not only has he conducted the Konzerthaus Orchestra, but during his studies in Vienna, he also dedicated himself to the historical archive of Berlin’s Sing-Akademie, which was discovered in Kiev in 1999. With the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, whose chief conductor he has been since 2009, Karabits gave the first performance of C. Ph. E. Bach’s St John’s Passion in modern times. Apart from his engagements with London’s major orchestras, he has conducted premieres of La Bohème and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Glyndebourne Festival and appears regularly at the opera houses in Moscow and Hamburg. His most recent invitations have taken him to Cleveland and Philadelphia, Oslo, The Hague and Turin. He is also intensively involved in youth orchestra work, having taken on the artistic directorship of the I, Culture Orchestra in 2014 and also of the Beethoven Academy Orchestra from Poland.
www.kirillkarabits.com
© Mika Bovan
Born in Kharkiv in the Eastern Ukraine in 1984, Alexander Gavrylyuk gave his first public concert at the age of nine. At 13 years of age, he emigrated to Australia with his family. In 2005 he won the famous Artur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv. Ever since, Gavrylyuk has been invited to perform all over the world, performing with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Vladimir Jurowski, Vassily Petrenko, Leif Segerstam and Andrey Boreyko. During the 2014/2015 season he appeared with the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam as well as the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, in Budapest, London, Vienna and Moscow. The focus of his repertoire is on the Russian composers: thus, the pianist performed the complete piano concerti by Sergey Prokofiev together with Vladimir Ashkenazy in Sydney, and the complete piano concerti by Sergey Rachmaninov with Neeme Järvi in Geneva. Furthermore, Gavrylyuk dedicates himself to supporting young Australian piano talents and social projects for children in Cambodia.
www.alexandergavrylyuk.com
Symphony No. 3 (1975)
Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini in A-Minor Op. 43 (1934)
«Taras Bulba» Rhapsody (1918)
7 pm: Pre-concert Lecture in the Werner-Otto-Saal
Free for ticket holders (admission at 6:45 pm)
Moderation: Anne Kussmaul
In cooperation with the Körber Foundation.
PROGRAMME
A concert with three masterworks of the 20th century which are rarely heard in the concert hall: Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra always seems to hover in the shadow of his famous piano orchestras – quite unfairly, for the composer turned Paganini’s rather modest violin melody into a brilliant work full of virtuosity, temperament and elegiac moods. The symphonic poem Taras Bulba, for which the Moravian composer Leoš Janáček was inspired by the tragic story of a Cossack leader and his two sons, is a dark sound-painting involving tragic love, struggle and death. And the Symphony No. 3 by the Armenian Avet Terterian, written in 1975, offers a special journey of discovery: for thirty minutes, the ear is accosted by a mixture of relentless timpani, pale sounds and mighty explosions which will leave no listener unmoved.
Broadcast
The concert will be recorded and broadcast nationally by Deutschlandradio Kultur. The broadcast will be LIVE, August 20, 2015, 20:00-22:30. In Berlin via UKW 89.6, DAB+ and cable.