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The Sydney Symphony FamilyVladimir Ashkenazy
Vladimir Ashkenazy is the Sydney Symphony’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor.
In the years since Vladimir Ashkenazy first came to prominence on the world stage in the 1955 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, he has built an extraordinary career not only as one of the most renowned and revered pianists of our times, but as an inspiring artist whose creative life encompasses a vast range of activities.
Conducting has formed the largest part of his music-making for the past 20 years. He was Chief Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic from 1998 to 2003, and he was Music Director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo from 2004 to 2007. In 2009 he takes up the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Sydney Symphony.
Alongside these roles, Vladimir Ashkenazy is also Conductor Laureate of the Philharmonia Orchestra, with whom he has developed landmark projects such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich Under Stalin (a project which he toured and later developed into a TV documentary) and Rachmaninoff Revisited at the Lincoln Center, New York.
Links with the international music community
He also holds the positions of Music Director of the European Union Youth Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. He maintains strong links with a number of other major orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra (where he was formerly Principal Guest Conductor), San Francisco Symphony, and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin (Chief Conductor and Music Director 1988-96), and last year returned to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic.
Vladimir Ashkenazy continues to devote himself to the piano, building his comprehensive recording catalogue with releases such as the 1999 Grammy award-winning Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues, Rautavaara’s Piano Concerto No.3 (which he commissioned), and Rachmaninov transcriptions. His latest releases are recordings of Bach’s Wohltemperierte Klavier and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations.
A frequent visitor to Sydney
A regular visitor to Sydney over many years, he has conducted subscription concerts and composer festivals for the Sydney Symphony, with his five-program Rachmaninov Festival forming a highlight of the 75th Anniversary Season in 2007. Vladimir Ashkenazy’s artistic role with the Orchestra includes collaborations on composer festivals, major recording projects and international touring activities.