Daniel Kawka (Conductor)
Called upon and invited by the
greatest European symphony orchestras (such as the Orchestre philharmonique de
Radio France, the Orchestre National de France, the Russian National Orchestra,
the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the
Orchestre National de Montpellier, de Lille, de Lyon, des Pays de la Loire, the
Philharmonic Orchestra of Liиge, the Rome Santa Cecilia National Academy
Orchestra, the Orchestre Philarmonique de Nice, de Monte Carlo, the Varsovia
Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the London Sinfonietta…) and
the biggest music festivals (Paris, Rome, Brighton, Dublin, Varsovia, Budapest,
Moscow, Montreal, Sao Paulo, Seoul…), Daniel Kawka is now regarded as one of the
best interpreter of 20th century music and the Romantic repertoire, from
Beethoven to Strauss, repertoire to which he now devotes much of his artistic
activity.
Music director of the Ensemble
Orchestral Contemporain, he created in 2003 the “Festival Philharmonic”,
symphony orchestra dedicated to the great classical works, Romantic and Modern,
from the 18th to the 21st century.
His broad repertoire extends to
the opera and the great symphony works with choir, at which he excels. He leads
on a regular basis the most reputed choirs and vocal ensembles such as the New
London Choir, the Maоtrise de Radio France, the Stuttgart Neuevocalsolisten, the
Synergy Vocals Ensemble, showing his claimed passion for the voice and the great
vocal repertoire in general. In this regard, he conducted the major lyric works
along with the great Romantic “frescos” such as Verdi’s Requiem, Brahms’
“Deutsch Requiem”, Mahler’s Symphony “Resurrection”, Berlioz’s “Romeo et
Juliette”…
He leads the world premiиres of
Josй Evangelista’s opera at the Opera National de Lyon, of Suzanne Giraud’s
opera “Le Vase de parfums” (written and directed by Olivier Py), and of Jacques
Lenot’s opera at the Geneva Opera (January 2007). He conducts Bela Bartok’s
“Blue Beard Castle” at the Opera de Nantes in September 2007 in the new Patrice
Caurier and Moshe Leiser production.
Among his current projects, we
can quote Batistelli’s “Divorzio all’Italiana” given as a world premiиre at the
Opera de Nancy in fall 2008, Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” produced by the
Geneva Opera and directed by Olivier Py in June 2009, Wagner’s “Tannhдuser”
directed by Robert Carsen at the Rome Opera in fall 2009. (And also Alban Berg’s
Wozzeck during the 2009-10 season and a new run of Bartok’s “Blue Beard Castle”
in fall 2011).
In his further development of
Wagner’s works, Daniel Kawka has placed a special emphasis on “Parsifal”, along
with “Tristan” and “Tannhдuser” he will conduct in 2009, thus calling for the
prestigious Anglo-Saxon and German stages.
He is currently working on
“Gцtterdдmmerung”, “Tosca”, “Salomй”, as well as Richard Strauss’ operas he’s
really fond of.
The German music - Beethoven,
Wagner, Strauss, Bruckner, Mahler - , the Russian music – Chostakovitch,
Prokofiev…- constitute his favourite repertoire. He has been thereby leading as
invited conductor the complete set of Beethoven’s symphonies, Mahler’s
symphonies (after having conducted his great orchestra lieder cycles like “Das
lied von der erde” recorded in 2001 for the Selena Label), Richard Strauss’
symphonic poems, Chostakovitch’s symphonies (5th, 7th, 11th, 14th) as well as
the complete set of Stravinsky, Bartok, Dutilleux or Boulez’s works.
In that regard, he leaded in
Russia in fall 2008 a great concert tour putting together Messiaen, Xenakis,
Koering, Grisey, Bartok, Sibelius. After very intense years of activity
devoted to the interpretation of the contemporary repertoires, conducting about
400 works and premiиres, he has been now mainly focusing on the diffusion and
the interpretation of the 20th century masterpieces, the ones he considers as
the major works of our century, and is widely open to the recent, invention-rich
English and American works.
He finally belongs to the
generation of conductors that considers the idea of specialization as another
means of open-mindedness and stylistic work, the notion of “epoch” disappearing
in favour of a more enlightened approach of the whole repertoire, whatever the
periods. This mixing of musical styles, with a strong predilection for French,
Italian and German music, proves the wide musical universe he explored at the
head of the main symphony orchestras and operas.
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