Within the Dmitri Hvorostovsky Festival, the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre will hold a concert dedicated to the outstanding Russian singer on October 18. The music director of the concert is conductor and pianist Christian Koch (Austria).

Soloists of the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre Anna Avakyan, Violetta Grishko, Daria Ryabinko, Denis Grechishkin, and Sergey Samusev will take the stage on October 18. And maestro Christian Koch will get behind the conductor’s stand.

The first part of the concert will feature chamber vocal miniatures: lyrical songs by German composers Richard Strauss and Alban Berg. The music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be performed in the second part of the concert. The concert programme also includes an instrumental fragment: Andante from the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major. Christian Koch will perform it as a soloist.

Professor Christian Koch teaches at the Vienna University of Music and Arts (MUK). The work of a vocal and style teacher, as a rule, remains invisible to spectators, but it is audible to professionals. He collaborated as an assistant with the great connoisseur of Mozart Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the charismatic British conductor Daniel Harding (Salzburg Festival), the baroque master René Jacobs and the influential avant-garde artist of the 20th century Pierre Boulez (Festival in Aix-en-Provence, Theater an der Wien), the magnificent Valery Gergiev (Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg). As a pianist, Herr Koch is often invited by famous singers to accompany them; among them are Thomas Hampson, Bernarda Fink, Luca Pisaroni, Michael Schade, Annette Dasch, Patricia Petibon, and many others.

As assistant director and head accompanist, Christian Koch joined the international production team of the main opera event of the Dmitri Hvorostovsky Festival in 2021: the opera Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Under the music direction of Maestro Koch, the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre brought this spectacular performance to the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia in July 2022.