Mikhail Pochekin, Yury Favorin

Mikhail Pochekin was born in 1990 into a musical family, his father being the famous violin maker Yuri Pochekin, and his mother, Elena Pochekina, a violin teacher. From the age of 5 he studied with Galina Turchaninova, then improved his skills under the tutelage of Viktor Tretyakov, Anna Chumachenko and Rainer Schmidt at the Higher Schools of Music in Cologne, Munich and Madrid, Mozarteum University Salzburg and The City of Basel Music Academy. The musician also attended master classes by Christian Tetzlaff. 

Mikhail Pochekin has won awards and special prizes at numerous international competitions, including Andrea Postacchini Violin Competition in Fermo (Italy, 2007), Rodolfo Lipizer Prize International Violin Competition in Gorizia (Italy, 2008), Jascha Heifetz competition in Vilnius (Lithuania, 2009), Pablo Sarasate International Violin Competition in Pamplona (Spain, 2009), and Ruggiero Ricci Competition in Salzburg (Austria, 2015). In 2008, he was awarded Pablo Sarasate Prize and was invited by the Madrid Conservatory to appear in a concert playing the famous Boissier violin by Antonio Stradivari, previously owned by Sarasate. 

Touring extensively in Russia, Spain, Croatia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Turkey, Ukraine and other countries, Mikhail Pochekin has appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg Conservatories, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Rachmaninoff Concert Hall (Philharmonic-2), Mariinsky Theatre Concert Hall, National Music Auditorium in Madrid, Palau de la Música de València, Auditorium in Zaragoza, Munich and Cologne Philharmonic Halls, Gasteig Cultural Center in Munich, Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, and Salzburg Mozarteum. The musician has also been a guest of famous festivals, including the Kronberg Academy Festival, AlpenKlassik Festival in Bad Reichenhall (Germany), Schubertíada in Vilabertran (Spain) and Sofia Gubaidulina International Festival of Contemporary Music Concordia in Kazan. A regular participant of Stars of the 21st Century, a joint project of the Moscow Philharmonic Society and the Russian Ministry of Culture, the violinist has toured over 40 Russian cities with the project. 

Mikhail Pochekin has collaborated with the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra, Moscow State Symphony Orchestra under Pavel Kogan, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel, the Navarre Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgarter Kammerorchester, Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra in Reutlingen, and Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, appearing under renowned conductors including Vassily Sinaisky, Yury Simonov, Alexander Sladkovsky, Sergey Skripka, Valery Polyansky, Alexander Slutsky, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Juozas Domarkas, Heinz Holliger, Ilmar Lapins, Kevin Griffiths, Bojan Suđić, Mikhail Agrest, and Gavriel Heine. 

On the stage, Mikhail Pochekin partners closely with Wen Sinn Yang, Christian Tetzlaff, Kian Soltani, Christian Brembeck, Benedict Kloeckner, Kiveli Dörken, Petrit Çeku, Rainer Schmidt, Anna Chumachenko, Alexander Ramm and other soloists. For years, the violinist has performed in a duo with the pianist Yury Favorin. 

Concerts with his brother, violinist and viola player Ivan Pochekin, are of special importance to Mikhail Pochekin. In 2017, Melodiya released The Unity of Opposites, the Pochekin brothers’ joint album featuring works by Michael Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Reinhold Glière, and Sergey Prokofiev. Two years later, the artist recorded a CD with Bach violin sonatas and partitas for Solo Musica, Germany. 

Looking forward, the musician plans to continue performing with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra under Pavel Kogan, Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra, Die Neubrandenburger Philharmonie (Germany) and other orchestras.

Yury Favorin was born in Moscow in 1986. At the age of five he began learning the piano and recorder. He was eight when he entered the Gnesin Specialized Musical Primary School in Moscow, where he learned the piano under Professor Lidiya Grigorieva, the clarinet under Professor Ivan Mozgovenko, and the composition under Professor Vladimir Dovgan. 

In 2004 Yury entered the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory to study the piano under Professor Mikhail Voskresensky. He also studied the composition with Karen Khachaturyan and chamber ensemble with Alexander Rudin. Yury graduated from the Conservatory summa cum laude in 2009. In 2013–2015 Yury was also studying at University Mozarteum in Salzburg (Austria) with Professor Jacques Rouvier.

Yury performed with Pierre Boulez, Kent Nagano, Vladimir Jurowsky, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Alexander Rudin, Marin Alsop, Eri Klas, Alexander Vedernikov, Andrew Grams, Paul Goodwin, Kazuhiro Koizumi, Dmitry Liss and other leading conductors. Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Rudin, Gérard Caussé, Marc Coppey, David Lively, François Salque, Romain Guyot, Alexander Ghindin are among his partners on the stage. Together with composer Alexey Sysoev (electronics) and Dmitry Schyolkin (percussion) Yury has built the ensemble of free improvisatory music ERROR 404. 

Yury have accomplished several first performances of works by contemporary composers. Among his recordings there are complete Annees de pelerinage (live recording, released on label Melodiya) and Harmonies Poetiques et religieuses by Liszt, pieces by Alkan, russian composers of XX and XXI century (Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Medtner, Myaskovsky, Roslavets, Feinberg, Popov and others). 

Yury gives recitals in many countries – Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States of America, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, France, Poland, United States, Japan, China, Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan among them – achieving outstanding success everywhere. He also gives charity concerts for sick children (Moscow), war children (Vienna), and the disabled (Vienna). Yury is a member of the Freundes- und Förderkreises des Händel-Hauses zu Halle e.V. (Germany). 

He gives concerts at the most prestigious concert halls – Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Palais des beaux arts and Flagey Studio (Brussels), Cite de la musique (Paris), Tokyo International Forum (Japan), Beijing Concert Hall (China), Frideric Chopin University of Music Hall (Warsaw), Mendelssohn-Haus (Leipzig), Great, Small and Rachmaninoff's Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (Moscow), Saint-Petersburg Philarmonia Hall, Moscow International Performing Arts Center (House of Music), the House of Composers in Moscow and many others. 

Yury is the winner of the Prize of the Gyorgy Cziffra Foundation (Vienna, 2003), and is a laureate of many international competitions, among them: the International Olivier Messiaen Competition (piano), Fourth Prize (Yvonne Loriod Prize), and the Prize for the Young Soloist from the Musical Creativity Foundation (Paris, 2007), as well as the International Queen Elisabeth Competition (Piano), Fourth Prize (Brussels, 2010). 

He has taken an active part in numerous musical festivals, such as International Piano Festival in La Roque d'Antheron, Piano aux Jacobins, the Festival La Folle Journée in Nantes and in Tokyo, L'esprit du piano in Bordeaux, Guangzhou und Beijing, International Festival in Saint-Lizier, Musique en Vallée du Tarn, J. S. Bach Festival, Olivier Messiaen Festival, Steinway Parade, Magic of Piano, Art-November, Moscow Forum (International Festival for Contemporary Music), Moscow Autumn, and International Festival-School TERRITORIYA. 

Also he took part in the masterclasses with Paul Badura-Skoda, Stephen Kovacevich, Dmitry Bashkirov, Sergey Babayan, Boris Berman, Marios Papadapoulos, Ferenc Rados and Noel Flores. Yury was a participant of the International Summer Academy Praha – Vienna – Budapest (2003), the Academy of the Festival Verbier (Switzerland, 2011), the International Holland Music Sessions (TIHMS) (the Netherlands, 2011), the International Summer Academy in Oxford (2012), and the International Summer Academy Mozarteum in Salzburg (2012).

State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia (Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra) is one of the oldest symphony ensembles in the country: in 2021 it has celebrated its 85th anniversary. The first performance of the orchestra conducted by Alexander Gauk and Erich Kleiber, took place on October 5th, 1936 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

Over the years, the State Orchestra was directed by outstanding musicians: Alexander Gauk (1936–1941), Natan Rakhlin (1941–1945), Konstantin Ivanov (1946–1965) and Yevgeny Svetlanov (1965–2000). In 2005, the ensemble was named after Yevgeny Svetlanov. In 2000–2002, the orchestra was headed by Vasily Sinaisky, in 2002–2011 – by Mark Gorenstein, in 2011–2021 – by Vladimir Jurowski, in 2021–2022  by Vasily Petrenko. Since 2024, Philipp Chizhevsky has been Artistic Director of the orchestra.

The orchestra’s concerts were held at the most famous concert venues in the world including the Great Hall of the Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Bolshoi Theater of Russia, the Column Hall of the House of Unions, the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Pleyel in Paris, the Colon National Opera in Buenos Aires, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. In 2013, the orchestra for the first time performed in the Red Square in Moscow.

Herman Abendroth, Ernest Ansermet, Leo Blech, Nikolai Golovanov, Kurt Sanderling, Otto Klemperer, Kirill Kondrashin, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Mazur, Nikolai Malko, Igor Markevich, Yevgeny Mravinsky, Charles Munch, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Mstislav Rostropovich, Saulus Sondeckis, Igor Stravinsky, Mariss Jansons, Andrey Boreyko, Alexander Vedernikov, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Alexander Lazarev, Alexander Sladkovsky, Leonard Slatkin, Yuri Temirkanov, Thomas Zehetmair, Mikhail Jurowski, Neeme Jarvi and other outstanding conductors directed at the conductor's desk of the orchestra.

Famous musicians and ensembles performed with the orchestra including singers Irina Arkhipova, Galina Vishnevskaya, Montserrat Caballé, Sergei Lemeshev, Elena Obraztsova, Dmitry Hvorostovsky, Maria Guleghina, Placido Domingo, Jonas Kaufmann, Sergei Leiferkus, pianists Emil Gilels, Van Cliburn, Heinrich Neuhaus, Nikolai Petrov, Sviatoslav Richter, Maria Yudina, Valery Afanassiev, Boris Berezovsky, Elisso Virsaladze, Yevgeny Kissin, Nikolai Lugansky, Denis Matsuev and Grigory Sokolov, violinists LeonidKogan, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Boris Belkin, Maxim Vengerov, Gidon Kremer, Victor Pikaysen, Vadim Repin, Vladimir Spivakov and Victor Tretyakov, violist Yuri Bashmet , cellists Mstislav Rostropovich, Natalia Gutman, Alexander Knyazev and Alexander Rudin, as well as Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir and Yurlov State Academic Choir Capella of Russia.

In recent years, the list of soloists collaborating with the ensemble has been recruited with the names of such singers as Ildar Abdrazakov, Dinara Alieva, Aida Garifullina, Khibla Gerzmava, Dmitry Korchak, Elisabeth Kulman, Jose Kura, Vasily Ladyuk, Julia Lezhneva, Waltraud Meier, Anna Netrebko and Rene Pape, pianists Marc-Andre Hamelin, Leif Ove Andsnes, Rudolf Buchbinder, Simon Trpceski, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Mitsuko Uchida, violinists Kristof Barati, Ilya Gringolts, Alina Ibragimova, Leonidas Kavakos, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Sergei Krylov, Julian Rakhlin, Julia Fischer, Thomas Zehetmair, Nikolai Znaider and Pinchas Zuckerman, violist Maxim Rysanov. Considerable attention is also paid to joint work with young musicians, including conductors Maxim Emelyanychev, Dmitry Matvienko, Marius Stravinsky, Valentin Uryupin and Philipp Chizhevsky, pianists Andrei Gugnin, Lucas Debargue, Philipp Kopachevsky and Dmitry Masleyev, violinists Alena Baeva, Pavel Milyukov and Aylen Pritchin, cellist Alexander Ramm.

Having visited abroad for the first time in 1956, the orchestra has since represented Russian art in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Denmark, Italy, Canada, China, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, USA, Thailand, France, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan and many other countries.

The discography of the ensemble includes hundreds of LP records and CDs released by leading recording companies in Russia and abroad (Melodiya, Bomba-Peter, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, BMG, Naxos, Chandos, Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm, BelAir, ICA Classics, Pentatone, Toccata Classics, Fancymusic and others). A special place in this collection belongs to the Anthology of Russian Symphonic Music, which includes audio recordings of works by Russian composers from Glinka to Stravinsky (conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov). The TV channels such as Mezzo, medici.tv, Russia-1 and Kultura, radio Orpheus made recordings of the orchestra’s concerts.

Recently, the State Orchestra performed at the G. Enescu Festival in Bucharest, Another Space, Universe is Svetlanov! festivals and the XIV Guitar Virtuosos Moscow International Festival, Summer. Music. Museum  Festival in Istra; performed world premieres of works by Alexander Vustin, Victor Yekimovsky, Efrem Podgaits, Sergei Slonimsky, Vladimir Nikolaev, Alexei Retinsky, as well as Russian premieres of works by John Adams, Brett Dean, Gerard Grisey, Victor Kissin, Gyorgy Kurtag, Valentin Silvestrov, Olivier Messiaen, Rodion Shchedrin, Carl Orff, Vladimir Tarnopolsky and Karlheinz Stockhausen; took part in the  International Tchaikovsky Competition, the Grand Piano Competition for young pianists; presented the annual cycle of Stories with Orchestra educational concerts eight times; visited the cities of Russia, Austria, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, Germany, Spain, Romania, Turkey, China, Japan. Chamber evenings with the participation of soloists of the orchestra are also regularly held.

Since 2016, the State Orchestra has been implementing a special project to support professional composer creativity involving close cooperation of the ensemble with contemporary Russian authors. The first in the history composer in residence was Alexander Vustin. For outstanding creative achievements, the collective has been bearing the honorary title of “academic” since 1972; in 1986 it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, in 2006, 2011 and 2017 it dignified the gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation.

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.