Kirill Karabits
a native of Ukraine, studied conducting and composition at the Lysenko Music School in Kiev, then at the National Music Academy of Ukraine "Peter Tchaikovsky" and at the Vienna Academy of Music. He was principal guest conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and junior conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In concert, Kirill Karabits has worked with orchestras such as the Cleveland, Philadelphia and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Filarmonica del Teatro La Fenice and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 2016, he conducted the Russian National Orchestra on a tour of the USA and in two concerts at the Edinburgh International Festival. This summer he made his debut at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the opera field, guest engagements include Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera, Bolshoi Theatre, Wagner Geneva Festival and Hamburg State Opera. In 2015, a new production of Khovantchina was staged under his direction at Theater Basel. He is the artistic director of the I, CULTURE Orchestra, an orchestra of young musicians from Poland and other Eastern European countries. At the same time, the Ukrainian-born conductor has been principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra since 2008; in recognition of his work in the UK, he was named Conductor of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2013. From 2016/17 Kirill Karabits is General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the German National Theatre and the Staatskapelle Weimar. This season, in addition to symphony concerts, he will conduct Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Weimar and Boris Godunow at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. At the Stuttgart Opera, Karabits will take over the musical direction of the new production of Death in Venice.