Fantastical Violin Dreams
RUSSIAN NATIONAL
ORCHESTRA
ORCHESTRA
Dubai, UAE
Join the talented virtuoso, Daniel Lozakovich, and the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Pletnev, for this momentous concert taking place this year at InClassica. The evening begins with a performance of Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” Suite No. 1, a rousing and iconic work spread across four glorious programmatic movements, each a thematically rich and highly descriptive piece taken from a larger body of incidental music written to accompany the play of the same name by Henrik Ibsen.
Following this, Daniel Lozakovich will join the orchestra onstage as soloist for Alexey Shor’s Violin Concerto in B Minor, a work from the contemporary composer that takes place over three evocative moments. Beginning with a lively and energetic opening motif, the piece follows in the second movement to create a pensive and, at times, playful atmosphere. The rousing third and final part to the work closes with a triumphant finish, providing the perfect cadence to a piece which promises to be highly engaging in the hands of such a prodigious and emotive performer as Lozakovich.
After the intermission, the orchestra returns to perform Tchaikovsky’s ‘Elegy for String Orchestra in G Major’, a short work written as an entr’acte in 1884 for the fifty-year jubilee celebration of actor Ivan Samarin, and was first performed in the December of that year. However, it was some five years after Samarin’s death that Tchaikovsky finally gave consent for the piece to be published under a new name, the composer noting: “The Samarin piece needs a new title. Should it not be called Elegy? This would seem more appropriate, and above it the dedication in memory of I. V. Samarin”.
For the final performance of the evening, Daniel Lozakovich will rejoin the orchestra for the famed Russian composer’s hugely popular Violin Concerto, a work Tchaikovsky is said to have been so inspired to write, he set aside writing his ‘Grand Sonata’ midway through the process, something he had apparently never done before with a work. Following a rewriting of his initial idea for the Andante movement, the piece was completed within approximately one month in 1878, in the village of Clarens on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. Though rumoured to have first been performed 1879 in New York, this remains uncertain to this day. Regardless, despite initially mixed reviews, the concerto quickly garnered considerable praise and success following its official premierè in Vienna in 1881 by Adolph Brodsky (violin) and Hans Richter (conductor), and remains a firm favourite amongst concert audiences, its virtuosic and supremely melodic character indicative of Tchaikovsky’s style and prodigious skill.
Daniel Lozakovich
Daniel Lozakovich
Pianist, conductor, and composer, Mikhail Pletnev is one of the most respected and influential artists of the era. His prodigious talent as a pianist has earned widespread acclaim ever since the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, where he won First Prize at the age of 21. An invitation to perform at a 1988 diplomatic summit in Washington led to Pletnev’s friendship with Mikhail Gorbachev and a lifelong commitment to dismantling barriers through the universal language of music.
In 1990, Pletnev formed the Russian National Orchestra – the first independent orchestra in Russia’s history. Under his leadership, the RNO achieved recognition as one of the world’s great orchestras.
Over thirty years later, Pletnev has renewed his commitment to artistic freedom with his founding of the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra, named after the celebrated pianist, conductor, and composer whose own career inspired audiences from all corners of the globe.
Pletnev’s performances and recordings have shown him to be an outstanding interpreter of an extensive repertoire, both as a pianist and conductor. His recordings have earned numerous prizes, including a 2005 Grammy Award for his own arrangement of Prokofiev’s Cinderella. He received Grammy nominations for Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes (2004) and the Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev Piano Concertos No. 3 (2003). His critically acclaimed album of Scarlatti’s Sonatas (Virgin/ EMI) received a 1996 Gramophone Award, and his recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos (Deutsche Grammophon) was named “Best of 2007” by the NewYorker.
Pianist, conductor, composer, and cultural leader – all are significant facets of Mikhail Pletnev’s remarkable life. Yet with his characteristic humility, he insists that he is, simply, a musician.
Violinist Daniel Lozakovich’s majestic music-making has left critics and audiences spellbound. “Perfect mastery. An exceptional talent,” observed *Le Figaro* after a performance at the Verbier Festival, while the *Boston Globe* praised the “poise, tonal purity, and technique to spare” during his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons at the Tanglewood Festival in July 2017.
Daniel was born in Stockholm in 2001 and began playing the violin when he was almost seven. He made his solo debut two years later with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov in Moscow.
At the age of 15, Lozakovich signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and in 2018 released his debut album of Bach’s two violin concertos in collaboration with the Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks, along with the solo *Partita No. 2*. The album reached number 1 in the all-music category of the French Amazon charts and topped the classical album charts in Germany.
“None but the Lonely Heart,” Lozakovich’s second album, was released in 2019. Dedicated to Tchaikovsky, it includes the Violin Concerto, recorded live with the National Philharmonic of Russia and Vladimir Spivakov. *Grammophone* magazine named this recording as the “Top choice” spanning 70 years of the best recordings of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.
Lozakovich’s third album, released in 2020, focuses on the Beethoven Violin Concerto, recorded live with the Münchner Philharmoniker under Valery Gergiev. The project was released both as an audio album and e-video during the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, a project significant to Lozakovich, who considers the concerto one of the greatest ever written.
On *Spirits*, his latest 4th Deutsche Grammophon recording, Lozakovich celebrates some of his forebears in the hope of passing on their style and repertoire to younger generations. Partnered by pianist Stanislav Soloviev, Lozakovich performs favorite encores by Elgar, Debussy, Falla, Gluck, Brahms, and Kreisler.
Lozakovich studied at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe with Professor Josef Rissin from 2012 and graduated with a Master’s degree in 2021.
He plays the “ex-Sancy” 1713 Stradivari, generously loaned by LVMH / Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
The Russian National Orchestra was founded in 1990 by pianist and conductor Mikhail Pletnev. Of its debut at the BBC Proms in London, the Evening Standard wrote, 'They played with such captivating beauty that the audience gave an involuntary sigh of pleasure.' The RNO has been described as 'a living symbol of the best in Russian art' (Miami Herald) and 'as close to perfect as one could hope for' (Trinity Mirror).
Maintaining an active international schedule, the RNO appears in the music capitals of Europe, Asia and the Americas, is a frequent guest at festivals such as Edinburgh, the BBC Proms and Festival Napa Valley, and presents the RNO Grand Festival each September to open the Moscow season.
RNO concerts are often aired on National Public Radio, the European Broadcasting Union, and Russia’s Kultura channel. Their discography, launched with a highly praised 1991 recording of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique, now numbers more than 80 critically acclaimed recordings. Notable releases include the complete Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos on Deutsche Grammophon, Tchaikovsky’s six symphonies for Pentatone, and the RNO Shostakovich project, also on Pentatone, cited as “the most exciting cycle of the Shostakovich symphonies to be put down on disc, and easily the best recorded” (SACD.net).
Their recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Beintus' Wolf Tracks, conducted by Kent Nagano and narrated by Sophia Loren, Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev, received a 2004 Grammy Award, making the RNO the first Russian orchestra to win the recording industry's highest honor. Their recording of Shostakovich Symphony No. 7, conducted by Paavo Järvi, was awarded the Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2015 as the year's best symphonic album, and was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award.
