Internationally acclaimed conductor Tugan Sokhiev shares his time between symphony orchestras and opera houses all over the world and serves as music director at the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (since 2008) and Moscow’s prestigious Bolshoi Theatre (since 2014).
He is one of the last students of legendary teacher Ilya Musin at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Eager to share his expertise, Sokhiev initiated a conducting academy in Toulouse. His interest in classical music’s French-Russian relationships led him to become artistic director of the Franco-Russian Festival in Toulouse, bringing the Bolshoi Orchestra to the festival and to the Philharmonie de Paris.
As a guest conductor, Sokhiev regularly conducts the world’s most prominent ensembles including the Vienna, Berlin and New York philharmonic orchestras; Boston, Chicago and NHK symphony orchestras, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, where he was principal conductor from 2012 to 2017.
In early 2021, he conducted a highly successful production of Richard Strauss’ Salome at the Bolshoi Theatre (in a Metropolitan Opera co-production), where he later led a new production of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina (in a co-production with the Bavarian State Opera). Upcoming engagements include debuts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskappelle (in Dresden and at the Salzburg Easter Festival) and Munich Philharmonic. He returns to the Berlin and Vienna philharmonic orchestras and leading American orchestras. In October 2021, he conducted Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on tour to Russia, South Korea and Japan.
Sokhiev’s rich and varied discography includes recordings with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse on Warner Classics (including Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony, awarded the Diapason D’Or in 2020) and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth and Fifth symphonies, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and The Firebird on Naïve Classique.
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
