Kirill Karabits

Biography

Since 2009 Kirill Karabits has been Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Their first CD together, featuring the music of Rodion Shchedrin, was released by Naxos in April 2010 and after a successful first collaboration (Suites by Khachaturian) they are now embarking upon a series of recordings with Onyx Classics. In August 2011, Karabits took the orchestra to the BBC Proms for the second time under his direction, and just prior to that, he and the orchestra appeared in the Brighton, Lichfield and Cheltenham Festivals.

His engagements in the 2010/11 season included appearances at the Royal Festival Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bath Mozartfest with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. The 2011/12 season sees him working with the Royal Philharmonic, Rotterdam and Strasbourg Philharmonic orchestras, the BBC Symphony and Danish National Symphony orchestras and returning to SWR-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg with whom he will tour in Mannheim and Lucerne and record Prokofiev’s Skytian Suite for Haenssler Classics. He regularly collaborates with soloists such as Sergei Khachatrian, Simon Trpčeski, Paul Lewis, Hélène Grimaud, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Nikolai Lugansky and Arkadi Volodos.

Kirill Karabits made his North American debut in the 2009/10 season with the Houston Symphony, which was immediately followed by appearances that summer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and at the Grant Park and Aspen Festivals. He has also worked with the Minnesota and San Francisco Symphony orchestras as well as the National Symphony Orchestra Washington.

He made his debut at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2008 conducting Eugene Onegin. In Autumn 2010 Karabits made his debut for English National Opera with Rufus Norris’ production of Don Giovanni. Recent productions include Janacek’s The Adventures of Mr Broucek for Grand Théâtre Genève, Un Ballo in Maschera with Opéra National du Rhin, Idomeneo and Zemlinski’s Florentine Tragedy for Opéra National de Lorraine, Pique Dame with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, and Shostakovich’s Mosvka Cheryomushki for Opera National de Lyon. In the 2011/12 season Karabits appeared at Den Norske Opera.

Kirill Karabits studied conducting and composition at the Lysenko Music School in Kiev before continuing his studies at the National Tchaikovsky Music Academy in Kiev with Roman Kofman, and at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik under Uroš Lajovic. He has also held the positions of Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Associate Conductor of both Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

As part of his ongoing doctoral studies in Vienna, Kirill Karabits has done a considerable amount of research into hitherto unperformed or forgotten works that make up part of the recently rediscovered archive of Berliner Singakademie. This included his transcription of C.P.E. Bach’s Johannes Passion, written in Hamburg in 1784 and previously considered lost. His research has also led to the discovery, modern premiere and live recording of Telemann’s unknown (and probably earliest existing) opera Pastorelle en Musique with the Austrian Baroque ensemble Capella Leopoldina.