Aziz Shokhakimov

Conductor Aziz Shokhakimov has made significant impacts on both orchestral and operatic scenes in the West. He is music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg in France. Shokhakimov was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then still part of the Soviet Union, in 1988. At age six, he entered the Uspensky Music School for Gifted Children, studying violin, viola, and (with Vladimir Neymer) conducting. At 13, he conducted Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, with the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, and the following year, he made his operatic debut, leading a performance of Bizet's Carmen at the National Opera of Uzbekistan. In 2001, he became assistant conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, and he was named principal conductor in 2006. Shokhakimov's breakthrough in the West came in 2010 when he took second prize at the Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg, Germany. That opened up numerous guest conducting opportunities for Shokhakimov, who appeared with the Staatskapelle Dresden, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, among other groups. In North America, he has conducted the Oregon and Houston Symphony Orchestras, and he has led the Toronto Symphony and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. Shokhakimov served as kapellmeister (music director) of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Germany's Ruhr Valley from 2015 to 2021. In 2018, he made his recording debut on the Orfeo label, leading the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin on the album Trip to Russia. Shokhakimov also served as music director of the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra in Turkey from 2017 to 2020. In 2021, he became music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, an orchestra with which he had first appeared in 2014. Shokhakimov returned to recordings with that group in 2023, leading a performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64, on the Warner Classics label.
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