Among the many incredible artists featured at the Habana Clásica Festival this November, Dmitry Sitkovetsky will be appearing. In the classical music world, he is a “living legend,” a “renaissance man,” recognized worldwide as having an immense impact on the genre.
I had the good fortune to speak with Mr. Sitkovetsky a few days before he flew to Havana.
He was born into a fourth-generation family of musicians in Baku, Azerbaijan, a part of the former Soviet Union. Mr. Sikovetsky emphasizes his origin as the city of Baku. “It’s a marvelous city,” he said, “a melting pot of diverse cultures and peoples, and a major artistic center.” He tells me how he prefers to identify with “cities rather than countries.”
His parents are the renowned pianist Bella Davidovich and fabulous violinist Julian Sitkovetsky. As a young child, he studied violin at the Moscow Conservatory.
In the rebellious years of his youth, he emigrated from Soviet Union to New York to study at the Juilliard School in 1977.
Sitkovetsky is a violinist, conductor, transcriber, educator, presiding president and member of the jury of several competitions in Europe and Montreal. His illustrious career has taken him to Europe, North America, Russia, South America, Israel, and Asia. His collaborations in the last two years included performing with the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, the Israel Jerusalem Camerata, the Japan Century Symphony, the Lucerne Symphony, Orchestra della Toscana, the Royal Philharmonic, the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, the Sapporo Symphony, and the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. For the last 20 seasons, this year his last, as he bids farewell as the director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina.
As an educator, Sitkovetsky teaches Master Classes and conducts a series of interviews with major classical stars (“It Ain’t Necessarily So”) for Medici TV.
As a violinist, he has recorded over 40 works of the greatest composers from Prokofiev, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and Dutilleux to Beethoven, among others.
Sitkovetsky is a master of transcription of major orchestral works by composers such as Bach (the Goldberg Variations) Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Schnittke, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Sarasate. During the pandemic, he transcribed the Bukovina Songs/Preludes by Leonid Desyatnikov. It is a marvelous virtual recording by the New European Strings Chamber Orchestra viewed by an audience of over 250,000. Today, they have performed the transcription of the work live in Bucharest, Oviedo, Ljubljana, Baku, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
He is the creator and developer of several festivals including Finland’s Korsholm Music Festival, Seattle’s International Music Festival, Baku’s Silk Route of Music, and Tuscany’s Festival del Sole.
It will be the first time Mr. Sitkovetsky has visited Havana. He says he “absolutely cannot wait to get there.” He has “long been connected with” and “keenly aware” of Cuban art and culture, musicians, and talent, whether it be through the tales told by many friends from Moscow to Miami. “Cuba has a rich musical tradition in classical music,” he said, and “it’s always great to discover a new young talent.”
He believes music to be an ambassador of a country and considers the Buena Vista Social Club a group of “extremely talented performers, one of the country’s best ambassadors.”
And exactly how did Dmitry Sitkovetsky become involved in the Habana Clásica?
He said that while he was in Finland for the 40th anniversary of the Korsholm Music Festival, he met with Russian cellist Nikolay Shugaev, one of this year’s Artistic Directors of Habana Clásica. They talked. Shugaev asked if he would be interested in performing at the festival. By a turn of good fortune and chance, Mr. Sitkovetsky was free for a few days. He flies to Havana shortly.
Habana Clásica’s Artistic Director Marcos Madrigal said of the presence of Sitkovetsky in the program, “for Cuba and our Festival, it is a great honor to have the presence of an artist like Dmitry Sitkovetsky. The Havana public will enjoy his performances on November 11 and November 12 as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra conductor. We will also have the privilege of him teaching a masterclass during his visit. Having one of the most important violinists in history in the Habana Clásica family is a dream come true thanks to Nikolay Shugaev.”
Featuring 50 artists from Cuba, Switzerland, Russia, Germany, and Spain, Habana Clásica opens this November 5. The concert venues will be held in some of the most revered architectural splendors of the city including the Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís, Teatro Marti, the Iglesia de San Francisco de Paula, the Teatro del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the Sala Ignacio Cervantes, Palacio de Los Matrimonios, the Sala Covarrubias del Teatro Nacional de Cuba and the Oratorio San Felipe Neri.
Accompanying Mr. Sitkovetsky to Havana will be his beloved composers Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Bartok “They travel with me,” he said, this man of cities and not countries.
