Conducting the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra
Past couple of days I have spent preparing intensively for the next competition, which will be the Grzegorz Fitelberg competition in Poland. A great help again was my professor from the St Petersburg Conservatory, Leonid Korchmar, who came to Finland to instruct me and some other conducting students last weekend.
The task in this Polish competition is quite big: I have to study 18 works, and in the competition I will (in the best case) conduct 6 of them, decided by lot. Luckily I know more than half of the works from beforehand. In this competition we need to study three 20th century Polish works. My choices were Lutoslawski's 4th symphony, Panufnik's Sinfonia Sacra and Szymanowski's 2nd symphony. The good side in competitions is, that you will get to know works you would not study otherwise. For example, Panufnik's piece is very beautiful music and I am happy to study it for this occasion.
