Semyon Bychkov

In 2018 Bychkov‘s tenure as Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic was initiated with concerts in Prague, London, New York, and Washington celebrating the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovak independence. 2019 marked the culmination of The Tchaikovsky Project: concerts, residencies and recordings of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies. For 2024’s Year of Czech Music, in addition to recordings of Smetana’s Má vlast – voted by BBC Music Magazine as Orchestral Recording of the Year 2025 – and Dvorak’s Symphonies 7, 8 and 9, Czech music was at the centre of extensive European tours as well as concerts in the US, including three concerts at Carnegie Hall.  In 2025/26 Bychkov marked the 130^th anniversary of the founding of the Orchestra with extensive tours of Asia and Europe and, PENTATONE’s release of Mahler’s nine symphonies. 

Bychkov brings a unique combination of innate musicality and rigorous Russian pedagogy to a repertoire that spans four centuries. He is a frequent guest with the leading international orchestras and opera companies and has recorded extensively including with the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio, Concertgebouworkest, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris. Benchmark recordings with WDR Cologne include the four Brahms Symphonies, in addition to works by Strauss, Mahler, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Verdi, Glanert and Höller. His 1992 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin was the recommended recording for BBC’s Radio 3’s Building a Library (2020); Wagner’s Lohengrin was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Year (2010); and Schmidt’s Symphony No. 2 with the Vienna Philharmonic was BBC Music Magazine’s Record of the Month (2018).  

Bychkov has one foot firmly in the culture of the East and the other in the West. Born in St Petersburg in 1952, he emigrated to the United States in 1975 and is now based in Europe. In 1989 Bychkov returned to the former Soviet Union as Principal Guest Conductor of the St Petersburg Philharmonic and, the same year was named Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris. He was appointed Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne (1997) and, Chief Conductor of the Dresden Semperoper (1998). Bychkov returned to Bayreuth to conduct Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (2025) and, in 2026 conducted a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Paris Opera.  Bychkov was named “Conductor of the Year’ by the International Opera Awards (2015) and, by Musical America (2022).  He holds honorary titles with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Academy of Music, and from 2028 will be Music Director of the Paris Opera.