Rostov Academic Symphony Orchestra,
Valentin Uryupin, Miroslav Kultyshev

Valentin Uryupin is an exceptional talent: not only is he a celebrated conductor, but as a clarinettist he has performed worldwide and won more than twenty international competitions. Given his numerous conducting engagements in opera houses and concert halls alike, his solo career has begun to take more of a back seat. Nevertheless, Valentin Uryupin occasionally appears in play-conduct concerts in the dual role of clarinettist and conductor.

Valentin Uryupin graduated from the Moscow Conservatory as a clarinet player (2009) and conductor (2012). His teachers included conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky and clarinettist Evgeny Petrov. Uryupin has also worked as an assistant conductor to Valery Gergiev and Vladimir Jurowski. He is the 2017 winner of the 8th International Conductor’s Competition Sir Georg Solti. His conductor’s repertoire includes over thirty operas and ballets as well as a broad spectrum of orchestral music, including many contemporary works by composers such as John Adams, Gija Kantscheli, Henri Dutilleux, Jörg Widmann, and Kusma Bodrow.

Valentin Uryupin has been principal conductor and artistic director of the Rostov-on-Don Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2021, and regularly gives concerts at the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Evgeny Svetlanov Russian State Academic Symphony Orchestra, and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. Guest appearances have taken him to the Teatro Real in Madrid, Athens Opera, SWR Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra Dublin, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, the George Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest, Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. He collaborates with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Japan Century Orchestra Osaka, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen, and the Orchestra of the Teatro Communale di Bologna, among others.

Valentin Uryupin’s recent seasons include concerts featuring numerous major Russian orchestras, including the Svetlanov State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, Russian National Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra Moscow Virtuosi, and the Rostov Symphony Orchestra. He also had return engagements with the Tyrolean Festival Erl, Bolzano Haydn Orchestra, and Orchestra Della Toscana. In collaboration with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrucken and Eichhorn Friedemann he began work on the CD-recording of Schnittke’s complete violin works. In addition, he debuted with the Romanian Radio National Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Orchestra of the Staatstheater Darmstadt.

Valentin Uryupin has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Manager of the Novaya Opera Theatre in Moscow from 2021 to 2022, where he conducted new productions of Korngold's The Dead City and Massenet's Cendrillon. His schedule includes debuts with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the MAV Symphony Orchestra Budapest, Philharmonie Zuidnederland, his return to the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bregenz Festival, for Umberto Giordano's Siberia and his return to Oper Frankfurt for a new production. 

Miroslav Kultyshev was born in Leningrad in 1985. In 2004 he graduated from the Specialised Secondary School of the Conservatoire (class of Z. M. Zuker). At present he is a student of the St Petersburg State Conservatoire (class of Professor A. M. Sandler).

In 2007 he won the XIII International Tchaikovsky Competition. Immediately after the success on the Peter Tchaikovsky Competition Miroslav Kultyshev made his debut in Poland at the International Chopin Festival in Duszniki.

His concert career began when he was just six years old. At the age of ten he made his debut at the Great Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonic, performing Mozart´s Concerto in D Minor under Yuri Temirkanov.

Miroslav Kultyshev has won prizes at many international competitions, among them the International Heyden Foundation (1993), A Step Towards Mastery (1995) and Traditions and the Present (Grand Prix, 1995). Prize-winner at the Moscow International Heinrich Neuhaus Young Pianists´ Competition and the International Music Festival Virtuosi of 2000 (1999).
Recipient of the Hope of Russia prize (1999, and Grand Prix, 2000).

Grant-recipient of the International Yuri Bashmet Charitable Foundation (1999) and of the St Petersburg Philharmonic Society (1995-2004).
In 2001 he received a youth grant from Russia´s prestigious and esteemed Triumph independent prize. For a long time Miroslav Kultyshev was the youngest person in Who´s Who in St Petersburg (from 2002).

In 2005 Miroslav Kultyshev won first prize and the Gold Medal at the International Delphi Games (Kiev, Ukraine). In 2005 Miroslav Kultyshev was awarded the Order of the Griffon for his considerable contribution to music.

Miroslav Kultyshev has often been invited to perform concerts at music festivals, such as Kissinger Sommer (Germany, from 2002-2006) and Yuri Bashmet´s festival The Island of the Elba – Europe´s Musical Island (Italy,1997, 2003). He has also appeared at the Mecklenburg Festspiele Vorpommern (Germany, 2006), Stars of the White Nights (2007), Septembre Musical (Switzerland, 2007) and the International Conservatoires Week (2007).

In 2006 and 2007 he trained at the Holland Music Sessions International Academy. Since 2006 he has been a grant-recipient and active participant of programmes run by the St Petersburg House of Music.

Miroslav Kultyshev has performed at leading concert venues in St Petersburg and Moscow as well as at world-famous venues such as the Musikverein in Vienna, Salzburg´s Mozarteum, the Lincoln Center (Avery Fisher Hall) in New York and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). As a young pianist, he has worked with such conductors as Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Ashkenasi, Yuri Bashmet, Mark Gorenstein, Konstantin Orbelyan, Vasily Sinaiski, Nikolai Alexeyev, Alexander Dmitriev and Sergei Roldugin.
Has toured to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, the UK, the USA, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania.