Russian National Orchestra
Kirill Karabits, conductor
Stefan Jackiw, violinist

A Los Angeles Times critic calls the Russian National Orchestra, performing at Penn State as part of its twenty-fifth anniversary tour, “one of the world’s great ensembles.” Led since its inception by Artistic Director Mikhail Pletnev, the orchestra is unique among the principal Russian ensembles because it is a private institution funded by individuals, corporations, and foundations. The ensemble, which in 2004 became the first Russian orchestra to earn a Grammy Award, has recorded more than eighty albums and tours throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Ukrainian Kirill Karabits, “an energizing presence on the podium” (The Telegraph of London), guest conducts the orchestra. The United Kingdom’s Royal Philharmonic Society named Karabits conductor of the year in 2013. Stefan Jackiw joins the orchestra to perform Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64. Jackiw, who is scheduled to make his Carnegie Hall debut the day before the Penn State concert, combines poetry and impeccable technique. “When he plays, it is not all about him, or all about the violin—it is all about the music,” a Boston Globe critic asserts. “He knows what he wants to do with every phrase, and some of it is marked by heart-stopping purity of intent.” The violinist, born in Massachusetts to physicist parents of Korean and German descent, has appeared as a soloist with the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. His playing, writes a reviewer for The Globe and Mail of Toronto, is “as pure and close to perfection as music can get.” The orchestra program also includes Alexander Glazunov’s Prelude to the Suite From the Middle Ages and Pletnev’s arrangement of Sergei Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet.