Dima Slobodeniouk

Conductor Dima Slobodeniouk's performances reveal his Scandinavian education and his Russian roots, but he has not limited himself musically. Slobodeniouk emerged as a major force in the late 2010s with high-profile posts and appearances across Europe and the U.S. Slobodeniouk was born (as Dmitri Slobodeniouk) in Moscow in 1975. His surname has also been transliterated as Slobodenjuk. His father and grandfather were both orchestral violists, and his mother was a pianist. When he was 14, he began studies at the Moscow Conservatory as a violinist. By the time the Soviet Union fell in 1991, he was already showing talent, and at his father's urging, he moved to Finland for studies at the Middle Finland Conservatory and then the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He graduated as a violinist and then switched to conducting; his teachers were Leif Segerstam, Jorma Panula, and Atso Almila, and he took master classes with Esa-Pekka Salonen and, in Russia, Ilya Musin. Beginning in 1999, Slobodeniouk notched a long series of guest conducting appearances across Europe and the U.S., including with the Boston Symphony and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra. He was named music director at the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia in La Coruña, Spain, in 2013, and became chief conductor of Finland's Sinfonia Lahti in 2016. His guest conducting engagements continued to grow, and he made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2018. Slobodeniouk conducts a wide range of Russian, Scandinavian, and western European repertory with a special emphasis on contemporary music. Slobodeniouk has recorded for BIS, Ondine, and Alba, among other labels, mostly with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. His 2013 recording of concertos by composer Vagn Holmboe with the Norrköping Symphony was nominated for a Grammy award in the U.S. In 2020, Slobodeniouk led the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in a performance of rare ballet suites by Prokofiev on BIS. ~ James Manheim