Dmitry Vasiliev

Dmitry Vasiliev is the artistic director and principal conductor of the Siberian Symphony Orchestra in Omsk, which he has built into a world-class ensemble. Vasiliev, who has a strong commitment to contemporary music, is notable as a musical entrepreneur, founding a number of new performing organizations and festivals. Vasiliev was born in 1972 in Bolshoy Kamen, in the Russian Far East near Vladivostok in what was then the Soviet Union. The town's employment base was largely devoted to nuclear engineering, but Vasiliev showed talent in music and was sent west to the Rostov State Conservatory, from which he graduated. He went on to the Nizhny Novgorod State Conservatory in central Russia, where he studied with Alexander Skulsky, conductor of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of Nizhny Novgorod. He also took master classes in Moscow with Alexander Vedernikov and Vladimir Ziva. Vasiliev's career expanded quickly even while he was in his early 20s, and some of it he made for himself. In 1997, at age 24, he established the Tambov Symphony Orchestra in Tambov, south of Moscow; he served there as artistic director and chief conductor until 2005. Living in Tambov, he also worked as the artistic director of the Sochi Symphony Orchestra in southern Russia from 2003 to 2005. In 2005, Vasiliev became the principal conductor of the Siberian Symphony Orchestra in Omsk (known in Russia as the Omsk Philharmonic). He remained in that position as of the early 2020s, and he has also served as the artistic director of the New Music Festival in Omsk. Vasiliev has raised the orchestra's profile, both in Russia and internationally. He and the orchestra traveled to Moscow in 2009 in order to perform at the Fourth Festival of World Symphony Orchestras, and they made a return visit there for a performance at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. They also traveled to St. Petersburg, performing at the Mariinsky Theater, and to various other Russian cities and abroad. As a guest conductor, Vasiliev has led orchestras in France, Italy, Israel (the Israel Symphony Orchestra), South Korea, China, and Poland. Establishing a relationship with the Toccata Classics label, he released the album Vissarion Shebalin, Orchestral Music, Vol. 1, with the Siberian Symphony in 2012. Vasiliev has programmed a great deal of contemporary music, giving the world premieres of works by Mikhail Bronner, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Ilya Heifets, among others, and the Russian premieres of works by John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse, and John Adams. His recording career has focused on recordings of neglected music, mostly not Russian; in 2020 and 2022, he and the Siberian Symphony issued a pair of albums devoted to the music of composer Steve Elcock, who remained unknown until well into his 50s.
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