Biography

Kirill Karabits is in his fourth season as Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; he recently signed an extension through the 2015-16 season. He has made a number of recordings with the orchestra including an all-Shchedrin disc and a Khachaturian album, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  Mr. 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 the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2011.

This season Mr. Karabits performs with the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and at the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival with the Beethoven Academy Orchestra. He also debuts at the Hamburg State Opera andreturns to the Bolshoi Theatre for La Bohème. In 2013-14, Mr. Karabits will conduct The Flying Dutchman at the Wagner Geneva Festival in addition to returning to Den Norske Opera. Highlights of last season included returns to the Royal Philharmonic and London Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, SWR Symphony, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, as well as debuts with the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, Rotterdam Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and the Danish National Symphony. In May 2012, Mr. Karabits conducted the final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award broadcast nationally on BBC television.

As part of his ongoing doctoral studies in Vienna, Kirill Karabits has researched hitherto unperformed or forgotten works that make up part of the recently rediscovered archive of the Berlin Singakademie. His research has led to the discovery, modern premiere, and live recording of Telemann's opera Pastorelle en Musique with Capella Leopoldina, as well as a transcription of C.P.E. Bach's Johannes Passion, written in Hamburg in 1784 and previously considered lost.

(May 2013)