One of the most impassioned, authoritative conductors on the world stage, Semyon Bychkov also brings a moral urgency to everything he performs. Born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in 1952, he had a thorough technical grounding from the legendary conducting teacher Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory. In 1973 he won the Rachmaninov Conducting Competition, but after he criticised the Soviet regime’s anti-Semitic policies, his prize was revoked and he left the country for Vienna, and then the U.S. Subsequent performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and Concertgebouw Orchestra made such an impression that he was offered a 10-year contract with the Philips recording company. His debut recording, in 1986, was with the Berlin Philharmonic in Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, and it made a deep impression on both critics and members of the orchestra, many of whom were new to the work. Subsequent appointments in Paris, St. Petersburg, Dresden and Cologne consolidated Bychkov’s reputation as a uniquely insightful interpreter of Mahler, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Strauss. In 2018, he was appointed music director of the Czech Philharmonic. Typically, Bychkov was quick to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and he has made it clear that his performances of Russian classics are offered in a spirit of protest.