Sinfonica di Milano, Austrian Emmanuel Tjeknavorian is the new music director

The Milan Symphony once again bets heavily on a young man: Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, 28, is the new music director of the Largo Mahler Orchestra as of the 2024/2025 season. If, as the Maestro says, 'love and music know no age', it is also true that the Verdi Foundation's choice could be seen as the crowning achievement of an artistic vision that puts young people at the heart of its activities. This musical direction, after all, is the first in Tjeknavorian's career: 'I feel overwhelmed with emotion at this appointment, it's a bit like a first marriage,' says Tjeknavorian, who, after a brilliant career as a violin soloist, has since September 2022 begun a new phase in his musical life: that as a conductor. The young Austrian musician started playing the violin at the age of five, but always wanted to pursue a conducting career. He thus began to study conducting with his own father, Loris Tjeknavorian, a composer and conductor, and then went on to absorb the art of the baton from all the conductors with whom he found himself working as a violinist: starting with his success at the International Sibelius Competition in 2015, he has given concerts in the most internationally renowned halls and collaborated with the greatest musicians of our time.

Emmanuel Tjeknavorian's career on the podium has had an impressive rise, suffice it to say that in the current season he makes his conducting debuts with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, the Orchestra della Toscana, the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse and the Sinfonieorchester Liechtenstein. He will make his comeback with the Wiener Symphoniker after his debut in the 2022/23 season, with the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, the Grazer Philharmoniker, the Philharmonie Zuidnederland and, of course, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. Last season he made his debut as conductor with the Filarmonica della Scala, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and numerous other internationally renowned ensembles

An overview from which Tjeknavorian reveals a certain fondness for the temperament of Italian orchestras: 'There is a substantial difference in the Italians' approach to life. And when the approach to life is different, the approach to making music is also different. In the eyes of the Italian musicians, I read a great passion that is reflected in making music, and that's a bit what I look for from an orchestra. The atmosphere, in general, is radically different, and a different way of playing together certainly also derives from that'. Emmanuel Tjeknavorian's appointment is one that further strengthens the role of the Milan Symphony Orchestra as a point of reference in the Milanese, regional and national territory, and gives further impetus to its international projection.