30th INTERNATIONAL MASTERCLASS
IN ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTING
with Maestro ALEXANDER POLYANICHKO
(Mariinsky Theatre)
and St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra
January 4-8, 2011
Repertoire to be studied:
F.J. Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 44, 43, 104
W.A Mozart: Symphony Nos. 29, 40 (also 39, 41), Overtures to "Don Giovanni" and "Magic Flute", "Le Nozze di Figaro", "Eine kleine Nachtmusik"
L. van Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1-8, Overtures "Careolan" and "Egmond"
J. Brahms: Symphonies 1-4
F. Schubert: Symphony No. 5 D.485D, Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished"
N. Rimsky-Korsakov: "Sheherazade", "Easter" Overture
P.I. Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 4, 5 & 6,
"Serenade for strings", “Romeo and Juliet” Overture-Fantasia,
"Swan Lake" Suite Op. 20
plus the choice among the following:
S. Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 "Classical"
D. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5
I. Stravinsky: Symphony in three movements, Apollon Musagete
J. Strauss: "The Bat" Overture, Op. 362
Other choice of repertoire is possible (subject to the confirmation by the Maestro and the orchestra)
Preliminary Workshop Schedule:
DAY 1 - Piano Session
DAY 2 & 3 - Chamber orchestra
DAY 4 & 5 - Symphony Orchestra
DAY 6 - Dress Reheasal and Final public concert
All active participants will conduct at the Final (public) Concert.
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
1) This workshop is open to conductors at all levels of proficiency, from beginners to professionals. There is no age limit. The official language is ENGLISH.
2) Participants will work with the orchestra for four days. Each participant will conduct the orchestra every day for at least 30 minutes (total 2 hrs on the podium, plus the dress rehearsal and the concert).
3) Accommodation at a hotel or a private apartment at a reasonable price (usually around €40 per day) can be arranged on your behalf.
4) Assistance with Visa issuance (i.e. Invitation Letter) for Russia is available at no additional cost (required for most nationals). You can download the Visa Assistance Form from this website.
5) All sessions can be videotaped (please bring your own cameras and DV tapes).
6) Final concert will be videotaped - the performance DVD will be sent to each participant free of charge (i.e. included in the price of the masterclass)
7) Please note that, if you are to bring a musical instrument and/or bow into Russia, you may need to declare it with the customs, as well as give a photo of your instrument.
Active Participant Fee - €1,800 (approx. US$2,400)
Auditors (Passive Participants) - €650 (approx. US$975)
Deadline for Applications: November 15, 2010
The Workshop Fee covers all masterclass sessions.
A Certificate of Completion will be issued to each participant after the final concert.
Places are limited - please inquire today.
About the Faculty:
Maestro ALEXANDER POLYANICHKO (Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia).
A violinist in the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra under Evgeny Mravinsky, Alexander Polyanichko studied conducting with the legendary Professor Ilya Musin at the St Petersburg Conservatoire. In 1988 he was awarded first prize in the Sixth All-Union Conductor’s Competition (previous winners had included Eugeny Mravinsky, Yury Temirkanov, Alexander Lazarev) and the following year joined the Mariinsky (Kirov) Theatre. Alexander was the Opera Director between 1995 and 1996. He still conducts at the Mariinsky on a regular basis.
Recent engagements (2006) include new productions of Boris Godunov at the Opéra de Monte Carlo, The Makropoulos Case with director Graham Vick at the Danish Royal Opera and Mazeppa for Welsh National Opera. Mazeppa did win the Theatrical Awards TMA last, 2006, year for best opera production.
He has worked with major opera companies throughout the world including the Bolshoi Theatre (La Bohème, Tosca, Queen of Spades), Danish Royal Opera (Queen of Spades, The Love for Three Oranges, The Markopoulos Case), Deutsche Oper Berlin (La traviata), English National Opera (Eugene Onegin and Carmen), Gothenburg Opera (Queen of Spades, Boris Godunov), La Scala (Khovanschina), Monte Carlo Opera (Boris Godunov), Norwegian Opera (La Bohème, Madama Butterfly), Opera Australia (Carmen), Opera National de Paris (Mavra, The Prodigal Son, Seven Deadly Sins), Royal Opera Covent Garden (Queen of Spades with Placido Domingo), San Francisco Opera (Fiery Angel, Turandot, La Bohème, The Cunning Little Vixen), Stuttgart Opera (Queen of Spades, Lady Macbeth of Mstensk, Tosca, Boris Godunov, Turandot, La traviata) and Welsh National Opera (La traviata, Hansel und Gretel, Mazeppa). In 1996 he took the Opéra National de Paris to New York to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Alexander Polyanichko has conducted the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet Theatre in Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Japan, Monaco, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United States.
His Russian operatic repertoire comprises Boris Godunov, Khovanschina, The Marriage and Sorochinsky Fair (Mussorgsky); The Queen of Spades, Eugene Onegin and Mazeppa (Tchaikovsky); Prince Igor (Borodin); The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and Sadko (Rimsky-Korsakov); The Fiery Angel, The Love Of Three Oranges, The Duenna (Prokofiev); The Miserly Knight (Rachmaninov); Mavra (Stravinsky); Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Gamblers (Shostakovich).
Other repertoire includes: Lohengrin (Wagner); Faust (Gounod); Aida, Don Carlos, Otello and La Traviata (Verdi); Carmen (Bizet); The Barber of Seville (Rossini); La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Turandot (Puccini); Seven Deadly Sins (Weill), Hansel and Gretel (Humperdinck); The Cunning Little Vixen, Makropulous Case (Janacek) and Salome (Strauss).
He has worked with many world famous singers including Olga Borodina, Larissa Diadkova, Makvala Kasrashvili, Anna Netrebko, Elena Obraztsova, Anne Sofie von Otter, Dawn Upshaw, Sergey Aleksashkin, Sir Thomas Allen, Pata Burchuladze, Plasido Domingo, Vladimir Galuzin, Sergey Leiferkus, Vladimir Ognovenko, Nikolai Okhotnikov, Nikolai Putilin, John Tomlinson.
Alexander Polyanichko is also a distinguished symphonic conductor. He has toured New Zealand with the Wellington Symphony Orchestra, and Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Brisbane Symphony Orchestra. In the UK he has conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra of Opera North, The Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra and the Britten-Pears Orchestra.
Elsewhere he has worked with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Beethoven Academie of Antwerp, Danish National Radio Orchestra, Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Jenaer Philharmonie, Latvian State Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Opera de Lyon, Orchestra of Gothenburg Opera, Orchestra of Danish Royal Opera House, Oregon Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica de Galicia, State Symphony Orchestra of Byelorussia as well as the major orchestras in Russia, including the Sverdlovsk and Novosibirsk Symphony Orchestras, Russian National Orchestra and St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestras. From 1986 to 1989 Alexander Polyanichko was Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Byelorussian State Chamber Orchestra in Minsk, with whom he toured and recorded extensively. From 1997 to 2000 he was Chief Conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.
Future engagements include Romeo and Juliet in Washington, Eugeny Onegin in Welsh National Opera and concerts with Calgary Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra (soloist Misha Maiski), Hallé Orchestra, Norway Radio Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestras, The Symphony Orchestra of Royal College of Music ( London) and The Britten-Pears Orchestra as well as performances in Mariinsky Theatre.
Alexander Polyanichko was a member of Jury at the Rimsky-Korsakov Opera Singers’ Competition and has taken part in many international festivals: Savonlinna and Mikkele in Finland; Edinburgh, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh in the UK, Bergen ( Norway). In Russia he has appeared at the Shaliapin Festival (Kazan), The Avantgarde to the Contemporary Festival and White Night's Festival ( St Petersburg) and Golden Mask Festival ( Moscow).
From 1985 to 1989 Alexander Polyanichko taught conducting at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory and Minsk Conservatory. Since 2001 he has regularly given master-classes organized by the Royal Baltic Festival and the Hermitage Music Academy.
Click here to view the video from one of Maestro Polyanichko's Masterclasses.
About the Orchestra:
ST. PETERSBURG STATE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1967 under the directorship of Nikolai Rabinovich and has had many outstanding conductors from the St Petersburg school involved from its foundation such as Karl Eliasberg and Edward Grikurov. They set a very high musical standard which was then strengthened by their conducting students of the next generation - Yuri Temirkanov, Mariss Jansons, Y. Simonov, E. Serov, E Kolobov, R Martynov and others. The orchestra has undergone much change since its inception including a change of name and leadership but through all this time it has been developing its repertoire strengths and building a devoted audience. In 1996, the orchestra was given the honorary title of an Academic Orchestra.
The orchestra’s repertoire is extremely diverse ranging from the Baroque music of Handel and Vivaldi right through to music of the 20 th century. Since 1991, the orchestra holds their subscription series in the Mirror Hall of the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace. In addition, the orchestra often performs in the Philharmonic Hall. Apart from standard concerts, the orchestra offers many educational programmes aimed at children and young people with repertoire including the classical masterpieces, Russian repertoire and music from foreign composers.
The regular commissioning and performance of new compositions is testament to the high standard of the orchestra with many new works written especially for the orchestra. There is strong support for local composers but also collaborations with many foreign composers who have also dedicated their works to this orchestra.
The Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra tours regularly all over the world and has had successful concerts in Spain, Japan, Mexico, Germany, China and Finland. In the autumn of 1998, the orchestra toured to the USA and over 2 months held close to 50 concerts in different cities from the far east to the west coasts.
Many distinguished soloists and conductors have worked with the orchestra over the years such as Sviatoslav Richter, Elena Obrastsova, Yevgeni Nesterenko, Natalia Gutman, Eliso Virsaladze, Mikhail Vaiman, Yevgeniy Mogilevsky, O. Nikole, Montserrat Kabale, Pavel Egorov and Viktor Tretyakov.
From 2004 to 2007, the orchestra appointed the young, dynamic Vasily Petrenko as the new Chief Conductor following on from Ravil Martynov. From 2007 the principal conductor of the orchestrais Maestro Alexander Titov, Honorary Artist of Russia.
For more info about the orchestra, visit www.spb-orchestra.ru.
