Eugene Tzigane has been appointed as the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra starting from the beginning of the year 2023. The first season planned by him is Autumn 2023. Tzigane has been a regular guest conductor in Kuopio since 2015.
Born in Japan, raised on both sides of the Pacific and now based in Europe, Eugene Tzigane grew up in an artistic family surrounded by all kinds of literature, cinema, dance, and music. From an early age, he was exposed to music of vastly different origins from Classical and Jazz, to Eastern European folk music and dance.
The eclectic mix of cultures and musical interests has formed Tzigane into a musician that thinks beyond the usual categories, boundaries, and traditions. He constantly discovers fresh ways of performing familiar repertoire. In recent years his insatiable curiosity has driven him to explore performance practices of different periods of music.
”I ask myself, how did Beethoven or Liszt play? Or, how did Wagner revolutionize conducting? What were the ideals and philosophies that guided their activities as composers and performers? It’s the musical equivalent of an actor on stage who embodies a character in a realistic and believable way. It is at its essence a Holistic Approach to Historically Inspired Performance Practices”, Tzigane describes.
Tzigane has studied at the prestigious Juilliard School, and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He has won several prices in Conductor Competitions. His reputation as a versatile force on the podium is witnessed by his engagements from Japan to Australia. With a natural flair for working with singers, Tzigane has also enjoyed conducting opera, for example, in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Stockholm. The orchestra and audiences alike in Kuopio have enjoyed his choices including especially forgotten works and music by minority composers.