Moscow Chamber Orchestra

Born in 1957 in Moscow, Alexey Utkin studied at the Central School of Music. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory (1980) and completed his post-graduate studies (1983) in the oboe class with Anatoly Petrov. The training that the young oboist followed in the Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra, along with his brilliant musical education and natural talent, made him a prominent figure in the world of music. Utkin is one of the musicians who were able to bring the oboe as a solo instrument to the world stage.

Having performed most of solo works written for oboe, Utkin began to expand the instrument's range and capacity through arrangements. Utkin's repertoire includes works by Bach and Haydn, Vivaldi and Mozart, Richard Strauss, Shostakovich, Bruch and Britten. The musicians's stage partners include Vladimir Spivakov, Yuri Bashmet, Heinz Holliger, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Natalia Gutman, Eliso Virsaladze, Alexander Rudin, Radovan Vlatković, Valery Popov, Elena Obraztsova, David Daniels, Dmitry Khvorostovsky, Christian Zacharias, Frederick Kempf, Boris Berezovsky, Viktor Tretiakov, David Fray, Igor Chetuev. Utkin has been applauded by Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall (New York), the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), the Palau de la Música Catalana (Barcelona), the National Auditorium of Music (Madrid), the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Théâtre des Champs Élysées (Paris), the Hercules Hall (Munich) and the Beethovenhalle (Bonn). 

Many of Utkin's programmes have been recorded on CDs, including Bach's Concertos for oboe and oboe d'amour, works by Rossini, Pasculli, Vivaldi, Salieri, and Penderecki's Capriccio. In the late 1990s, while continuing to work with the Moscow Virtuosi, Utkin embarked on an independent career, and in 2000 he founded the Hermitage Ensemble. With this ensemble, the maestro has performed numerous concerts and recorded 12 CDs for the Caro Mitis label, including works by Johann Sebastian Bach, C.F.E. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Richard Strauss, Shostakovich, and Britten. 

In 2010, Alexey Utkin became Director of the State Chamber Orchestra of Russia. While maintaining the ensemble's traditions, he sees himself not just as its Artistic Director and conductor, but also as a soloist, first among equals. The maestro began his work with the orchestra by expanding the range of styles and genres of the works they perform. In 2011 and 2015, the orchestra under maestro Utkin accompanied pianists participating in the second round of the International Tchaikovsky Competition. In the 2021/22 season the orchestra takes part in the Moscow Philharmonic's festival "Georg Friedrich Handel: The World of the Mountains and the World of the Valley" (featuring the concert versions of Rodelinda, Tamerlane and Julius Caesar in Egypt) with world-famous soloists, and closes the season with a concert performance of Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto. 

Alexey Utkin continues to arrange famous works for oboe. In recent years, he has appeared in various parts of Russia, from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. Utkin's new ideas and discoveries are reflected in such programmes as Ost-West Fantasy for chamber orchestra, electric guitar, bass guitar, Indian flute, and percussion; and Andrey Rubtsov's Festival Divertimento Fairy-Tale (for chamber orchestra, children's choir, electric guitar, and percussion) among others. His friendship with actor Alexander Filippenko gave him an impetus for the creation of Reflection in Water, based on Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Krokhotki and Shostakovich's Preludes. 

In 2016, Alexey Utkin received the Moscow Literature and Art Award (Musical Arts category) for his contribution to the development of national musical art and the promotion of classical music at Moscow concert venues. He is a professor at the Moscow Conservatory and plays the unique oboe by F. LOREE, the oldest oboe brand. This instrument was custom-made for the musician by Alain de Gourdon, a renowned French master and the company’s owner.