Kyiv Orchestra

DMITRY YABLONSKY, Conductor and Cellist

Dmitry Yablonsky was born into a musical family. At a very early age, he showed musical talent, and at the age of 6, he was accepted into the Central Music School for gifted children, where cello became his instrument. His orchestra debut came at the age of 9, when he performed the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto with Gennady Provatorov conducting. During the last few years before his family's immigration, Dmitry has performed numerous recitals. 

Upon arrival in New York City in June of 1977, Dmitry auditioned for the Julliard School of Music, and was accepted. During the school years, his cello teachers ewre Isaak Buravsky, Zara Nelsova, and David Soyer. Dmitry also participated in master classes with Mstislav Rostropovich, Andra Navarra, Maurice Gendron, and Janos Starker. 

During his graduate program at the Yale University, Dmitry took conducting lessons with Otto Werner Muller, who is considered one of the most influential conducting teachers in the United States. 

His first professional recognition as a cellist came in 1979 when he performed at the well-known Marlboro Music festival, where he was the youngest participant. Since then, Dmitry has performed in such recognized concert halls such as La Scala, Carnegie Hall. Taiwan National Hall, Codagan Hall, Cite de la Musique, Madrid Auditorium, just to name a few. 

In his performing and recording career, Yablonsky has worked in long-standing partnerships with artists such as Vadim Repin, Monserrat Caballe, Olga Borodina, Edlar Abdrazakov, Leif Ove Andsnes, Yuri Bashmet, Boris Berezovsky, Roberto Alagna, and many more. 

Dmitry's professional engagements as a conductor began in Camerino, Italy in 1989. Since then, his conducting career has taken off. He's been invited to collaborate with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, Moscow Soloists, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, De Filarmonie, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Israeli Opera Orchestra Richon LeZion, Tenerife Orchestra, Lamoureux Orchestra, Orchestra National d'lle de France, Belgian National Orchestra, OFUNAM Orchestra in Mexico, and others. His recent ours to the United States and Japan with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra as a Conductor Laureate were performed to sell out concert halls throughout. 

Dmitry Yablonsky was recently appointed to be Chief Conductor and Artisitc Director of the Kyiv Virtuosi Symphony orchestra. The Orchestra's future releases on the Naxos label will include Shostakovich Chamber Symphonies, Silvestrov Pleyel and Hofmann cello concertos, Italian Areas with Azer Rzazadeh, and Dvorak Cello Concertos. 

Dmitry has recorded more than 80 CDs for Naxos, Chandos, and Warner/Erato labels. His recordings have enojyed world-wide acclaim, and some of them were nominated for the Grammys, as well as the Artistics Personality of Azerbaijan, and Professor at the Buchman-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University in Israel. 

When Dmitry Yablonsky plays cello, he performs on either Matteo Goffriller, or Joseph filius Andreas Guarneri. 

Dmitry Yablonsky, Artistic Director & Chief Conductor, featuring the soloists of the Multipiano Ensemble from Israel

Melody by the Ukrainian composer, Myroslav Skoryk (1938 – 2020)

Myroslav Skoryk was a Ukrainian composer and teacher. His music is contemporary in style and contains stylistic traits from Ukrainian folk music traditions. Skoryk was awarded the titles People's Artist of Ukraine and Hero of Ukraine.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847) & Ignaz Moscheles (1794 – 1870) – “Fantasie Brilliante Variations” (for 2 pianos & Orchestra) – American Premiere, performed by the members of the MultiPiano Ensemble from Israel:

• MultiPiano, (Tomer Lev, Berenika Glixman, Nimrod Meiry-Haftel, Lior Lifshitz)
   

Ignaz Moscheles – “Les Contrastes” – Grand Duo op. 115 (for 2 pianos in 8 hands Orchestra) – American Premiera, performed by MultiPiano Ensemble from Israel.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847) Piano Concerto no. 1 in g minor – performed by Alon Kariv, piano soloist from Israel.

MultiPiano (Tomer Lev, Berenika Glixman, Nimrod Meiry-Haftel, Lior Lifshitz)

Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in g minor, Op. 25, was written in 1830–31, around the same time as his fourth symphony ("Italian"), and premiered in Munich on 17 October 1831. This concerto was composed in Rome during a travel in Italy after the composer met the pianist Delphine von Schauroth in Munich. The concerto was dedicated to her. Mendelssohn attended one party after another in Munich in October 1831, the month of the premiere, but he also played chamber music and taught double counterpoint. He performed the piece himself at the premiere, which also included performances of his Symphony No. 1 and the Overture from Midsummer Night's Dream. He had already written a piano concerto in A minor with string accompaniment (1822) and two concertos with two pianos (1823-24)

• Molto allegro con fuoco in G minor
• Andante in E major
• Presto—Molto allegro e vivace in G major
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Intermission

Baruch Berliner (1942 - ) Jacob’s Dream Cello Concerto.
Dmitry Yablonsky – Cello soloist

1. Isaac's Blessing
2. Jacob's Dream
3. Cadenza (Prayer)
4. Gate to Heaven

Baruch Berliner was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel, then Palestine, in 1942. His parents fled from the Nazi Regime in Germany in 1937. His mother, Charlotte, who grew up in Vienna, was a pianist, singer and dancer and his father Shabtai was a lawyer and businessman, who participated as a pioneer in the development of the agriculture in Palestine long before the state of Israel was existing.

During this period, he finished school in Berlin, Academic Studies in theoretical physics at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and got there a PhD in mathematics. He was a Senior Actuary at the Swiss Reinsurance Company in Zurich, which is the largest reinsurance company in the world, and an invited lecturer at different Universities all over the world. He published two scientific books and about seventy papers in actuarial studies and finance. His book “The Limits of Insurability of Risks” became a bestseller. In 1992, he met in Israel the excellent musician Nachum Slutzker and returned to intensive musical study. He showed Nachum his notebook and this was actually the trigger for composing the symphonic poem “Genesis”. In the thirty years of cooperation Baruch and Nachum became close friends. In addition, Nachum became the producer advisor and many times also the initiator of diversified joint projects. The creation of “Genesis” means for Berliner the realization of a dream.

He succeeded to interlace most important two desires to his heart: Faith and music. “Genesis” for narrator and orchestra was already performed in 19 countries. In every country the narrator read the Biblical text in the local language since the Bible is the best seller of all times that was translated into about 700 languages. The symphonic poem Jacob’s Dream gave Berliner the inspiration for composing four concerts that were played with a lot of success by excellent and world-famous soloists: The concerto for violin and orchestra “Jacob’s Dream”, the concerto for viola and orchestra “Jacob’s Dream”, the concerto for cello and orchestra “Jacob’s Dream”, the concerto for clarinet and orchestra “Jacob’s Dream”.

Berliner has moreover written about one thousand poems, seven hundred proverbs and some dozens of short stories, mostly in German and partly in English. The poems in German were so far partly printed in six books. When returning to Israel he wrote for his beloved wife Ruhama over three thousand love poems in Hebrew, part of which are already printed in seven books.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Born: 1770, Bonn, Germany / Died: 1827, Vienna, Austria

“Stimulated by those moods which poets turn into words, I turn my ideas into tones which resound, roar, and rage until at last they stand before me in the form of notes.” One of the greatest composers in the Western musical tradition, Ludwig van Beethoven revolutionized virtually every form and genre of music in which he composed. His “Eroica” Symphony transformed that genre; his 32 piano sonatas enabled the development of piano music from the genial pieces of the late 18th century to the colossal masterworks of Liszt and Schumann; and his opera Fidelio embodied the virtues of liberty and equality that transformed Europe during his life.

The Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93 is a symphony in four movements composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1812. Beethoven fondly referred to it as  "my little Symphony in F", distinguishing it from his Sixth Symphony, a longer work also in F.

The Eighth Symphony is generally light-hearted, though not lightweight, and in many places loud, with many accented notes. Various passages in the symphony are heard by some listeners to be musical jokes. As with various other Beethoven works such as the Opus 27 piano sonatas and the later Ninth Symphony, the symphony deviates from Classical tradition in making the last movement the weightiest of the four.

1. Allegro vivace e con brio (F major)
2. Allegretto scherzando (B♭ major)
3. Tempo di menuetto (F major)
4. Allegro vivace (F major)