Carydis, Mühlemann / Mozart, Respighi

If an orchestra entrusts a debutant with one of its traditional seasonal concert highlights right away, this usually speaks for itself. This is what happened in the case of Constantinos Carydis who will stand on the podium of the Wiener Symphoniker for the first time at its traditional Christmas concerts. The conductor, born in Athens in 1974, was awarded the Carlos Kleiber Prize of the Bavarian State Opera in 2011. He learnt his artistic craftsmanship at the Conservatoire of his home town (music theory and piano) and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich (conducting). For his debut, Carydis, who always conducts without a baton, has compiled a both atmospheric and varied programme: Besides rarely performed works by Mozart, there will also be two symphonic poems by the Italian Ottorino Respighi. According to the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, these are particularly dear to Carydis’s heart: “He is an interpreter who operates in an alert manner, as it were, at the very limit, that is, he always pays attention to maximum contours of even the smallest occurrences”, as mentioned in the review of a recent performance.