Insights of Genius

In their second Symphonic Middle East Festival performance, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) returns to Dubai Opera to present a programme featuring a work by contemporary composer Alexey Shor, as well as an orchestral piece by one of the UK’s most cherished composers, Edward Elgar. This concert welcomes Gold Medal and First Prize winner of the 1978 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, Founder and Artistic Director of the Russian National Orchestra, Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev. The evening’s programme opens with a special arrangement of Shor’s From My Bookshelf, prepared by Pletnev himself. The work, which incorporates a series of eight musical portraits describing some of the composer's favourite literary figures including Cinderella, Don Quixote, Tom Sawyer, Quasimodo, the Queen of Hearts and Romeo and Juliet, aptly demonstrates the composer’s deft programmatic style of writing and strong use of melody. Following the intermission the MPO will present a performance of Elgar’s intriguing Enigma Variations (Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36), a unique fourteen-movement work that features a series of musical ‘sketches’ inspired by personality traits and/or personal events concerning the composer’s close friends. This concert is presented by CMDI Group and SAMIT Event Group, with the support of the European Foundation for Support of Culture (EUFSC).

Programme:

A. Shor

From my Bookshelf Piano Concerto (arr. Mikhail Pletnev)

--Intermission--

E. Elgar

Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36

("Enigma Variations")

Sergey Smbatyan

Acclaimed as a cultural leader in his native Armenia and increasingly in demand on the international stage, Sergey Smbatyan is founder, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra. In September 2019 he became Principal Conductor of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra following highly successful tours of Germany, Austria and the United States, including performances at the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna’s Musikverein and Carnegie Hall.

Music’s power to unite, heal and inspire has driven and sustained Smbatyan since childhood. His mature artistic vision combines lessons learned from the best traditions of Russian music-making and a profound personal commitment to transforming lives through the shared experience of performing and listening. The charismatic conductor’s reputation with fellow musicians and critics alike flows from his technical command, the intensity with which he shapes and communicates musical ideas, the intelligence of his programming, and the spiritual richness and depth of his interpretations.

Sergey Smbatyan was eighteen when he founded the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra in 2006. He has overseen its transformation since from youth ensemble into one of Armenia’s finest professional orchestras. They began 2020 with a landmark European tour, complete with debut appearances at Vienna’s Musikverein, the Berlin Philharmonie, Salzburg’s Großes Festspielhaus, the Barbican Hall in London, Moscow’s Zaryadye Concert Hall, the Gasteig Munich, Stuttgart’s Beethoven Hall and Prague’s Rudolfinum.

Smbatyan’s guest conducting career has flourished in recent seasons, leading to concerts with Sinfonia Varsovia, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and, among others, the Orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin. He returns to the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra during the 2020-21 season for a European tour comprising concerts at Wiesbaden’s Kurhaus and the Vienna Musikverein. His schedule also includes dates with the Malta Philharmonic, Russian National, Jerusalem Symphony and Royal Philharmonic orchestras as part of the 2021 Malta International Music Festival. Smbatyan will conduct the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra on its first UK tour in September 2021, presenting ten concerts at leading venues in company with Maxim Vengerov as soloist

Known for his imaginative programming, Smbatyan is a determined champion of new music and supporter of emerging talent. He is founder and artistic director of four music festivals in Armenia, Artistic Director of the Aram Khachaturian International Competition and, in October 2019, conducted the WTIC World Orchestra in the first ever concert of music composed by artificial intelligence (AI). His repertoire embraces everything from masterworks of the western symphonic literature to compelling scores by Armenian and other Eastern European composers, many of them commissioned by or specially written for him.

Born in Yerevan in 1987, Sergey Smbatyan showed exceptional musical promise as a child. He received his first violin lessons from his grandmother, Tatiana Hayrapetyan, and continued his training at the Komitas State Conservatory of Yerevan, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and with Zakhar Bron. He refined his conducting skills while studying for a PhD in fine arts at the Institute of Arts of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences and as a postgraduate student at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he gained invaluable insights into the conductor’s art from Sir Colin Davis.

Sergey Smbatyan’s list of awards and prizes includes the title of Honoured Artist of the Republic of Armenia, presented by the President of the Republic of Armenia in recognition for his promotion of Armenian music and culture. In 2014 he became the youngest ever worker in the field of the arts and the first Armenian to be appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture.

Mikhail Pletnev

Piano

Mikhail Pletnev is a brilliant pianist, a highly sought after conductor, a splendid composer, a remarkable individual, and an artist who defies conventional classifications. “Stupendous virtuosity and glittering ingenuity are the hallmarks of his piano performances. His meteoric career as a conductor seems to have made his playing even more symphonic, and his sound more imaginative.” (Die Welt)

Born in 1957, in Arkhangelsk, Pletnev demonstrated his talent early, entering the Moscow Conservatory at the age of 13. In 1978 he won first prize and the gold medal at the Sixth International Tchaikovsky Competition. He has since performed countless times as a soloist with the world’s most esteemed orchestras and conductors.

In 1990, with the assent of then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Pletnev founded the Russian National Orchestra – Russia’s first non-governmental, privately financed orchestra. Today the RNO is considered one of the world’s finest orchestras; each year, led by Pletnev and other distinguished conductors, it tours Europe, the U.S. and Asia. In 1996, the orchestra performed at the opening of the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Pletnev has recorded with Deutsche Grammophon since 1993, and his discs have been repeatedly nominated for Grammy Awards. “If music is crafted time, then time for Pletnev is not something that can be measured in technical terms, rather the high art of infinity, of tension and its resolution.” (Crescendo, on the Beethoven Cycle)

The London Telegraph remarked, "from Pletnev's fingers and brain come ideas that vitalise the music and make it teem with freshness and wit. [He] made the music positively leap for joy." The Times describes his playing as "born of a prodigious virtuosity of imagination outrageous in its beauty." BBC Music Magazine called Scarlatti’s Keyboard Sonatas, which received a Gramophone Award in 1996, "piano playing at its greatest... this performance alone would be enough to secure Pletnev a place among the greatest pianists ever known.”

Pletnev has also attained international acclaim for his work as a composer. The 1998 premiere of his Viola Concerto dedicated to (and performed by) Yuri Bashmet was enthusiastically received by both the press and the public. His arrangements of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty for piano are legendary – for pianists the world over they have become technical exams that demonstrate one is a master of the instrument.

Recently a journalist wrote: “A conversation with Mikhail Pletnev is like his playing. He is quiet and listens. He is tired of the same old questions; he prefers to improvise. If he does not like something, he gets up and leaves. If something interests him, he awakens and begins speaking in a voice that is obsessed, monotone and musical. Pletnev does not speak of the ordinary; he is only interested in superlatives.”

Pletnev has been the frequent recipient of state honors and international awards, including a Grammy (2005). In 2007 he was awarded a Presidential Prize and Order “For Service to the Homeland.”

Malta Philharmonic Orchestra

For half a century, the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra has been Malta’s leading musical ensemble.

The orchestra was founded in April 1968, when musicians from the defunct “C-in-C” orchestra of the Malta-based British Mediterranean Fleet regrouped as the Manoel Theatre Orchestra. It continued to serve as the theatre’s resident orchestra until September 1997, when it became an independent orchestra, taking up the name National Orchestra of Malta. The orchestra became the MPO in 2008 when it expanded into a full-size symphony orchestra, bringing together the best of Maltese talent and musicians from Europe and beyond.

Joseph Sammut, the C-in-C’s last conductor, was the orchestra’s first conductor, remaining at the helm until 1992. Since then, the orchestra has also been under the direction of Joseph Vella, John Galea, Michael Laus and Brian Schembri.

This season, the MPO has appointed Raoul Lay as its Artistic Director, together with Sergey Smbatyan as Principal Conductor and Michael Laus as Resident Conductor. The MPO also works with local and international guest conductors and soloists including Lawrence Renes, Michalis Economou, Guy Braunstein and Enrico Dindo.

As Malta’s only professional orchestra, the MPO averages more than one performance a week including symphonic concerts, opera productions in Malta and Gozo, community outreach and educational initiatives, as well as various concerts of a lighter nature.

The orchestra has performed in leading venues across the globe, including in the USA, Russia, Germany, Austria, China, Italy, and Belgium, and presently embarks on at least one international tour each concert season.

The MPO is a keen exponent of Maltese composers, regularly performing their works in Malta and overseas, as well as frequently premiering, and commissioning new compositions.

Through the MPO Academy and the Malta Youth Orchestra – which itself regularly gives concerts across Malta, the MPO is also responsible for the training and professional development of the next generation of Maltese musicians.