Dima Slobodeniouk

conductor

Slobodeniouk’s calm, clean direction helped hold the sprawling symphony tightly together, ensuring that even the softest, slowest-moving passages had a compelling edge.

Baltimore Sun (Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, March 2013)

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.

Last season he gave his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, including a tour to Copenhagen, Gothenburg and Tallinn. He works with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Radio Sinfonieorchester Berlin, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, London Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and Chicago, Houston and Baltimore symphony orchestras. In 2016 he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra in two concerts including Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in Brighton and Eastbourne.

Summer 2019 saw Slobodeniouk return to the Tanglewood Music Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Yefim Bronfman, before he gave his debut in the orchestra’s main series in Boston in October. Further highlights this season are debuts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich with Simon Trpčeski, the Vienna Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony with Sergey Khachatryan, and the Cleveland Orchestra. He returns to the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Houston Symphony with Kirill Gerstein. He opened the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia’s 2019/20 season with Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms; appearances on tour together this season include the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical Madrid with Isabelle Faust as soloist. With the Lahti Symphony he looks forward to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Sibelius Festival with soloists including Karita Mattila. Other soloists with whom he works include Leif Ove Andsnes, Joshua Bell, Khatia Buniatishvili, Vilde Frang, Håkan Hardenberger, Johannes Moser, Truls Mørk, Baiba Skride, Yuja Wang and Frank Peter Zimmermann.

Slobodeniouk’s discography was recently extended by recordings of works by Stravinsky with Ilya Gringolts and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia (BIS), and works by Kalevi Aho with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (BIS), the latter receiving a 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award. He has previously recorded works by Lotta Wennäkoski with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Ondine), and works by Sebastian Fagerlund with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (BIS).

Moscow-born Dima Slobodeniouk studied violin at the Moscow Central Music School under Zinaida Gilels and Jevgenia Chugajev, and at the Middle Finland Conservatory, as well as at the Sibelius Academy under Olga Parhomenko. His conducting studies continued with Atso Almila under the guidance of Leif Segerstam and Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy; he also studied under Ilya Musin and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Striving to inspire young musicians of the future, he has worked with students at the Verbier Festival Academy over recent years, and has also established a conducting initiative with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, providing an opportunity for students to work on the podium with a professional orchestra.