Dzintari Concert Hall

The Festival Opening Night

Latvian National Symphony Orchestra

Kirill Karabits, conductor (France)

Soloists: Inessa Galante (soprano), Irina Dolzhenko (mezzo soprano), Aleksandrs Antonenko (tenor), Egils Silins (bass), Nemanja Radulovic (violin, France)

Program – Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, opera arias and duos

Kirill Karabits brings a powerful intelligence to his conducting and is quickly establishing a reputation as a conductor of deep musicality. He has just ended his second season as Principal Guest Conductor of Strasbourg Philharmonic, appearing with them throughout the season both at home and on tour. From 2002 – 2005 Kirill Karabits was Associate Conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.  Highlights of his tenure with the orchestra included a concert for Radio France's contemporary Présences Festival, a Kurt Weill concert at the Cite de la Musique and a DVD of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe which was released by Radio France. Prior to this, Kirill Karabits served as Assistant Conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra working closely with Iván Fischer between 1998 and 2000 and conducting a number of performances with the orchestra.

Debuts last season included Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra alongside Anti Siirala, Bournemouth Symphony with Lars Vogt, Sydney Symphony, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and New Japan Philharmonic. Future engagements include MDR Leipzig, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, SWR-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden/Freiburg, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Bordeaux, Rouen, Lyon, Granada, Luxembourg and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In summer 2007 he will conduct concerts with the Auckland Philharmonia and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to his orchestral engagements, Kirill Karabits is also gaining a name for himself as a successful opera conductor. He recently made his debut with Opéra National du Rhin conducting Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and will also make his debut with Glyndebourne Festival Opera in summer 2008 conducting seven performances of Onegin as second conductor to Music Director Vladimir Jurowski. He recently conducted a production of Zemlinsky’s Eine Florentinische Tragödie with Opéra de Nancy et de Lorraine in September 2006, where he returns in 2009 for Idomeneo, and will make his debut with Geneva Opera with a production of Janacek’s The Adventures of Mr Broucek in spring 2008, with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. He returns to Opéra National du Rhin to conduct a production of Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera in Autumn 2008. Kirill Karabits is Principal Guest Conductor of the National Opera of Ukraine, where recent seasons have included a new production of Onegin, as well as regular performances of Tosca and I Pagliacci.

As part of his ongoing Doctoral studies in Vienna Kirill Karabits has done a considerable amount of research into hitherto unperformed or forgotten works that make up part of the recently rediscovered archive of Berliner Singakademie. This included his transcription – and popular premiere at Kiev last season – of C.P.E. Bach's ‘Johannes Passion’, written in Hamburg in 1784 and previously considered lost. His research has also led to the modern premiere of Telemann's completely unknown (and probably earliest existing opera) Pastorelle en Musique. Performed at the Gmunden Festival with the baroque ensemble Capella Leopoldina, a repeat performance was also given at the Musikverein in Vienna in May 2004.

The son of a noted Ukrainian composer, Kirill Karabits studied conducting and composition at the Lysenko Music School in Kiev before continuing his studies at the National Tchaikovsky Music Academy in Kiev, where he studied with Roman Kofman. In 1995 he decided to further his studies at the Wiener Musikhochschule (studying there for five years and gaining a diploma in orchestral conducting), and also briefly at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart, studying under Helmut Rilling and Peter Gulke.  He conducted the finals of the Maurice André trumpet competition with Ensemble Orchestral de Paris in November 2006 and will conduct Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney International Piano Competition in July 2008.

Born in Yugoslavia in 1985, Nemanja Radulovic has begun his musical studies in 1992. He won the Prize of October for music of the City of Belgrade in 1996, then the Special Prize of the ministry of Education of the Serbian Republic “Talent of the year 1997”.

In 1998, he studied in Joshua Epstein's class at the Saarlandes Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Saarbrücken, Germany, then in Dejan Mihailovic's class at the Faculty of Arts and Music in Belgrade.

At the age of fourteen, he moved to France. In 2000, he was admitted to the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, where he studied with Patrice Fontanarosa.

He has also taken part in master classes given by Yehudi Menuhin, Joshua Epstein and Dejan Mihailovic… He has regularly attended advanced classes given by Salvatore Accardo at the Walter Stauffer Academy in Cremona, Italy.

Nemanja Radulovic won many international prizes : First Prize at the Joachim Competition in Hanover in 2003, First Prize and two Special Jury Prizes at the Georges Enescu Competition in Bucharest in 2001, Second Prize of the Antonio Stradivarius Competition in Cremona in 2001 (first prize not distributed), Special Jury Prize at the Yehudi Menuhin Competition in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1998, First Prize at the Balys Dvarionas Competition in Lituania in 1997, Special Jury Prize of the Wieniawski-Lipinski Competition in Poland in 1997, First Prize of the Jan Kocian Competition in Czech republic in 1996, First Prize of the Stresa Competition in Italy en 1995…

Nemanja Radulovic has played with very many orchestras in his own country, in Romania, Czech Republic, Slovaquia, Italy, Germany, Austria, Poland, Estonia, Ukrainia, Switzerland, Japan, in the Philippines and in France with the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, the Orchestre de Cannes, the Orchestre National de Lille… He has played under the direction of such conductors as Eiji Oue, Daisuke Soga, Kristian Mandeal, Jiri Malat, Philippe Bender…

Since 2000, he has given regular recitals with the harpist Marielle Nordmann and with the pianists Susan Manoff, Laure Favre-Kahn and Dominique Plancade.

Since his appearance at the Festival de La Chaise-Dieu in France in 2002, he has taken part in the most famous music festivals, including the Flâneries musicales de Reims, the festivals of Vézère, Sisteron, Avignon, Périgord Noir, Le Touquet, Bucharest, or the festival de Radio France-Montpellier as well as in other events in Europe and Asia.

Nemanja Radulovic has been laureate of the Fondation Groupe Banque Populaire in 2001.

He has been awarded International Revelation of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique classique in Cannes in 2005 (aeaa, midem prize).

He has just been nominated Rising Star for the 2006-2007 season and he is going to play in the most important European concert halls : the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Mégaron in Athens, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, the Philharmonie of Cologne… as well as at the Carnegie Hall.

He has recorded in 2005 violin solos by Bach, Miletic, Paganini and Ysaÿe for the Transart Live label distributed by Naïve. Nemanja Radulovic plays a violin made by J. B. Vuillaume in 1843.