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The 2020-2021 season is Andris Nelsons seventh as the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Ray and Maria Stata Music Director. In summer 2015, following his first season as music director, his contract with the BSO was extended through the 2021-22 season. In February 2018 Mr. Nelsons was also named Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. On October 5, 2020, the BSO and GHO jointly announced extensions to Mr. Nelsons current contracts. His contract with the BSO was extended until 2025, and his GHO contract until 2027. An evergreen clause in his BSO contract reflects a mutual intention for a long-term commitment between the BSO and Mr. Nelsons beyond the years of the agreement.
Mr. Nelsons’ two positions, in addition to his leadership of a pioneering alliance between the institutions, have firmly established the Grammy Award-winning conductor as one of the most renowned and innovative artists on the international scene today. In fall 2019 Mr. Nelsons and the BSO hosted the Gewandhausorchester in historic concerts at Symphony Hall that included two performances by the GHO as well as concerts featuring the players of both orchestras together.
In the 2019-20 season, Andris Nelsons led the BSO in repertoire ranging from favorites by Beethoven, Dvořák, Grieg, Mozart, Mahler, Ravel, and Tchaikovsky to world and American premieres of BSO-commissioned works from Eric Nathan, Betsy Jolas, and the Latvian composer Arturs Maskats. The season also brought the continuation of his complete Shostakovich symphony cycle with the orchestra and collaborations with an impressive array of guest artists. Mr. Nelsons’ work with the BSO resumes with his return to Boston at the start of 2021.
Andris Nelsons’ and the BSO’s ongoing series of recordings of the complete Shostakovich symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon has included the composer’s symphonies 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11 (The Year 1905), and most recently a two-disc set pairing Shostakovich’s symphonies 6 and 7 (Leningrad). The cycle has earned three Grammy awards for Best Orchestral Performance and one for Best Engineered Album. The next installment, featuring symphonies nos. 1, 14, and 15 and the Chamber Symphony, Op. 110a (arr. Rudolf Barshai), is scheduled for release in summer 2021. Future releases will go beyond the symphonies to encompass the composer’s concertos for piano, violin, and cello, and his monumental opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Mr. Nelsons’ other recordings with the orchestra include the complete Brahms symphonies for the BSO Classics label and a Naxos release of BSO-commissioned world premiere works by four American composers: Timo Andres, Eric Nathan, Sean Shepherd, and George Tsontakis.
The fifteenth music director in the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons made his BSO debut at Carnegie Hall in March 2011, his Tanglewood debut in July 2012, and his BSO subscription series debut in January 2013. In November 2017, Mr. Nelsons and the BSO toured Japan together for the first time. They have so far made three European tours together: immediately following the 2018 Tanglewood season, when they played concerts in London, Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Vienna, Lucerne, Paris, and Amsterdam; in May 2016, a tour that took them to eight cities in Germany, Austria, and Luxembourg; and, after the 2015 Tanglewood season, a tour that took them to major European capitals and the Lucerne, Salzburg, and Grafenegg festivals. A scheduled February 2020 tour to East Asia was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
In his capacity as BSO Music Director and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Mr. Nelsons brings the BSO and GHO together for a unique multi-dimensional alliance including a BSO/GHO Musician Exchange program and an exchange component within each orchestra’s acclaimed academy for advanced music studies. A major aspect of the alliance is a focus on complementary programming, through which the BSO celebrates “Leipzig Week in Boston” and the GHO celebrates “Boston Week in Leipzig,” highlighting each other’s musical traditions through uniquely programmed concerts, chamber music performances, archival exhibits, and lecture series. The two orchestras have jointly commissioned and premiered works from Latvian, American, and German and Austrian composers.
In addition to his Shostakovich recordings with the BSO, Mr. Nelsons’ exclusive partnership with Deutsche Grammophon includes two other major projects. With the Gewandhausorchester he continues his critically acclaimed Bruckner symphonic cycle under the Yellow Label, of which four volumes have been released to date. His recordings of Beethoven’s complete symphonies with the Wiener Philharmoniker were released by Deutsche Grammophon in October 2019.
Mr. Nelsons frequently leads such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. As an opera conductor, he has made regular guest appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and the Bayreuth Festival. Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Andris Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra before studying conducting. He was Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (2008-2015), Principal Conductor of Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford, Germany (2006-09), and Music Director of the Latvian National Opera (2003-07).
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Andris Nelsons, conductor
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Daniel Lozakovich was born in Stockholm in 2001, and began playing the violin in 2007, making his concerto debut with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov two years later. Daniel has already performed as a soloist throughout Europe with orchestras including the the Orchestre national de France, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, National Philharmonic of Russia, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra.
Recently, Daniel made his debuts with Leonard Slatkin and the Orchestre National de Lyon, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse and Lorenzo Viotti, the Swedish Radio Symphony with Robin Ticciati, the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and Adam Fischer.
Daniel has a close collaboration with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, since they played together during the New Year’s concert 2015 at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. He returned to the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra to perform the Beethoven violin concerto at the closing anniversary concert of the 15th Moscow Easter Festival, and later at the Stars of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, also the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen and at the Rotterdam Gergiev Festival with Prokofiev concerto. Daniel opened the Münchner Philharmoniker festival, MPHIL 360°, alongside Maestro Valery Gergiev and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra with Mozart violin concerto. He also performed the Bach Concerto for Two Violins with Shlomo Mintz and the Cameristi della Scala and Daniel Cohen at the Crans-Montana Classics 2016 New Year’s Concert.
Daniel has a love of chamber music and has enjoyed collaborations with, among others, Ivry Gitlis, Daniel Hope, Martin Fröst, and Maxim Vengerov. In September 2015, Daniel recorded a selection of Bartók’s Violin Duos with Daniel Hope for Deutsche Grammophon, having previously performed together on ARTE’s Concert television program.
Daniel is a regular performer at the Verbier Festival and many other international music festivals, the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, Corinthian Summer Music Festival in Austria, the Colmar Festival, Moscow Meets Friends, the International Mstislav Rostropovich Festival in Baku, and the Sommets musicaux de Gstaad, where he returned in February 2016 to perform both the Bach Concerto in A minor BWV 1041 and Concerto for Two Violins BWV 1043 with Renaud Capuçon and the Festival Strings Lucerne. He also made his chamber music debut at the Aix en Provence Festival de Pâques in 2016 with Renaud Capuçon, and Khatia Buniatishvili.
Highlights for the 17/18 season include: tours in Japan with Valery Gergiev at the Pacific Music Festival (PMF); Japan tour with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra conductor Andreas Orozko-Estrada; a return to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with Semyon Bychkov and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and Tugan Sokhiev; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with Krzysztof Urbanski; Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra with Lahav Shani. Daniel will have his debut concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons at Tanglewood; Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra; Liege Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Christian Arming; Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin; Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai Torino; Gothenburg Symphony; Orchestra of Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra with Nikolaj Znaider. Furthermore, he will perform recitals at the Aix en Provence Festival; Salle Molière de Lyon; Les Grandes Voix – Les Grands Solistes; Tonhalle Zürich and return to the Verbier Festival.
At the Festival of the Nations Daniel has been awarded the prize of “The Young Artist of the Year 2017” and will perform with Munich Radio Orchestra and Mischa Damev.
Daniel has been awarded numerous international prizes including the 1st prize at the 2016 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition; both the 1st Prize and the “Grand Prix” at the 2012 EMCY international music competition, “Ohrid PEARLS”, Macedonia; 1st Prize and the “Gulda Nutcracker” at the 12th Nutcracker International Television Contest for Young Musicians in Moscow, 2011; 2nd Prize at the “Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists”, Austin, USA, 2014, and the 2015 Manfred Grommek Prize from Kronberg Academy. Daniel won three prestigious awards: the “Viennese Classics”, “String Soloists”, and “Best Interpretation of Sarasate ‘Gypsy Airs’” at the 2014 International Summer Academy of the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Excelentia Prizes under the Honour Presidence of Queen Sofia of Spain.
In June 2016, Daniel Lozakovich signed an exclusive recording deal with Deutsche Grammophon and will begin his long-term cooperation with the label by recording two orchestral albums and a recital disc. Since 2012, Daniel studies at the Karlsruhe University of Music with Professor Josef Rissin, and he is mentored by Eduard Wulfson. Currently, he is a student at the Collège du Léman in Geneva. In his limited spare time, Daniel enjoys playing football, boxing, tennis and chess.
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Daniel Lozakovich, violin
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