Chief Conductor and Music Director
“Semyon Bychkov is a Mahler conductor of the first rank, who unreservedly brings out the extremes of this music.”
Frank Armbruster, Concerti
In addition to conducting at Prague’s Rudolfinum, Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic in the 2023/2024 season, took the all Dvořák programmes to Korea and across Japan with three concerts at Tokyo’s famed Suntory Hall. In spring, an extensive European tour took the programmes to Spain, Austria, Germany, Belgium, and France and, at the end of year, the Year of Czech Music 2024 will culminate with three concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York.
Among the significant joint achievements of Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic is the release of a 7-CD box set devoted to Tchaikovsky’s symphonic repertoire and a series of international residencies. In 2024, Semjon Byčkov with the Czech Philharmonic concentrated on recording Czech music – a CD was released with Bedřich Smetanaʼs My Homeland and Antonín Dvořákʼs last three symphonies and ouvertures.
Bychkovʼs repertoire spans four centuries. His highly anticipated performances are a unique combination of innate musicality and rigorous Russian pedagogy. In addition to guest engagements with the world’s major orchestras and opera houses, Bychkov holds honorary titles with the BBC Symphony Orchestra – with whom he appears annually at the BBC Proms – and the Royal Academy of Music, who awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in July 2022. Bychkov was named “Conductor of the Year” by the International Opera Awards in 2015 and, by Musical America in 2022.
Bychkov began recording in 1986 and released discs with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra and London Philharmonic for Philips. Subsequently a series of benchmark recordings with WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne featured Brahms, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Strauss, Verdi, Glanert and Höller. Bychkov’s 1993 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with the Orchestre de Paris continues to win awards, most recently the Gramophone Collection 2021; Wagner’s Lohengrin was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Year (2010); and Schmidt’s Symphony No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Month (2018).
Semyon Bychkov has one foot firmly in the culture of the East and the other in the West. Born in St Petersburg in 1952, he studied at the Leningrad Conservatory with the legendary Ilya Musin. Denied his prize of conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic, Bychkov emigrated to the United States in 1975 and, has lived in Europe since the mid-1980’s. In 1989, the same year he was named Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, Bychkov returned to the former Soviet Union as the St Petersburg Philharmonic’s Principal Guest Conductor. He was appointed Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra (1997) and Chief Conductor of Dresden Semperoper (1998).
Mozart and Mahler
with Semyon Bychkov (conductor) and Kristian Bezuidenhout (piano) on the programme
Janáček
with Jan Mráček (violin), Lyubov Petrova (soprano)… on the programme
Dvořák
with Ivo Kahánek (piano) and Semyon Bychkov (conductor) on the programme
He says music is his life, and his life is music. And that is natural, because he is one of the world’s best conductors and a phenomenon that hardly bears comparison. Nonetheless, in the text that follows, there is not much to read about music as such. The life story of Semyon Bychkov, chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, is so fascinating, and he is so wonderful at telling it, that in the course of a two-and-a-half hour interview, we (almost) did not get around to talking about music.
The Czech Philharmonic under its chief conductor Semyon Bychkov plays Felix Mendelssohn's famous Scottish Symphony. Recorded by Studio Rudolfinum on 4 February 2021 in the Dvořák Hall.
In an interview, chief conductor Semyon Bychkov reflects on the uniqueness of the first Czech symphonic ensemble. He believes that it is not only the musicality and musical passion of its members, but also their character traits.
