Symphony Concert N° 9

Internationally renowned conductor Tugan Sokhiev shares his time between symphony and opera, with orchestras from all over the world. He was the Musical Director of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (ONCT) from 2008 to 2022 and of the prestigious Bolshoi Theater in Moscow from 2014 to 2022.

Being one of the last students of legendary teacher Ilya Musin at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Tugan Sokhiev is eager to share his expertise and thus has initiated a Conducting Academy in Toulouse. His interest in French-Russian relationships in classical music has led him to become Toulouse’s Franco-Russian festival artistic director. The Bolshoi Orchestra often plays at this festival and at the Philharmonie de Paris under his baton.

As a guest conductor, Tugan Sokhiev regularly conducts the most prominent orchestras in the world: Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Vienna, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, New York, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Symphony Orchestra of the Finnish Radio, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, where he was appointed Principal Conductor between 2012 and 2017.

Tugan

Sokhiev has a rich and varied discography, including recordings  with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse on Naïve Classique (Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, Mussorgsky/Ravel’s »Pictures at an Exhibition«, Rachmaninov’s »Symphonic Dances«, Prokofiev’s »Peter and the Wolf«, and Stravinsky’s »The Rite of Spring« and »The Firebird«) and on Warner Classics (Shostakovitch Eighth Symphony). His recordings of Prokofiev’s »Ivan the Terrible«, Fifth Symphony and Scythian Suite with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester have been released on Sony Classical. He is currently collaborating with EuroArts on a series of DVD’s. Under the same label, he appears with the Capitole de Toulouse in a recording of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Vadim Gluzman.

The 2021/2022 season includes engagements with the Orchestra of La Scala, Milan, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskappelle at the Salzburg Easter Festival and the Munich, Berlin and New York Philharmonic orchestras. In October 2021, he will lead the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on their tour of Russia, Korea and Japan.

Since his gold medal win at the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, Haochen Zhang has captivated audiences in the United States, Europe, and Asia with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination, and spectacular virtuosity. In 2017, Haochen received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, which recognizes talented musicians with the potential for a major career in music. 

Haochen has already appeared with many of the world’s leading festivals and orchestras including the BBC Proms with Long Yu and the China Philharmonic; the Munich Philharmonic with the late Lorin Maazel in a sold-out tour in Munich and

China; The Philadelphia Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin; the Sydney Symphony and David Robertson in a China tour; and the NDR Hamburg and Thomas Hengelbrock in a tour of Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai. 

Haochen is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied under Gary Graffman. He has also been studying periodically with Andreas Haefliger in Vienna. He was previously trained at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shenzhen Arts School, where he was admitted in 2001 at the age of 11 to study with Professor Dan Zhaoyi.