Kirill Karabits

" the orchestra's blazing quality, in the pin-drop transparency of the Anvil's acoustic, made you wonder why this ensemble, and its serious and electrifying young Ukrainian conductor, Kirill Karabits, do not command noisier headlines...Then came Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony, home territory for Karabits, who led the journey from sorrowful opening through to brittle, glinting, gaudily percussive finale. He converted me to a piece I've long resisted – medalworthy in itself." (The Guardian, January 2012)

"... Karabits has had a significant impact on the orchestra since his arrival there two years ago, moulding it to his interpretative and repertoire preferences...Karabits coaxes a ripe, full sound from the Bournemouth players and encourages broad bowings from the strings that add weight to the sonority...Karabits’s discerning, sure-footed approach gives the symphony terrific cohesion and grandeur of stature... Karabits is an inspired architect....He has an energising presence on the podium, without being domineering...he paced the whirlwind finale in a way that brought the house down. (The Telegraph, November 2011)

"Kirill Karabits has just begun his third season as Bournemouth Symphony's principal conductor...the partnership is clearly developing nicely. Certainly the orchestra seems a more characterful, cogent band than it did when Karabits took over – the strings especially have more depth and lustre ….Yet the precision and refinement of his conducting are just as convincing and serious as they've ever been. Whether it was the hushed beginning to the first movement's development, the brass grotesqueries at the end of the scherzo, or the woodwind arabesques and divisi cellos in the introduction to the finale, Karabits judged them all perfectly" (The Guardian, October 2011)

"The strength of this performance, however, lay in the way that Karabits built up the tension to boiling point without disrupting the piece’s formal structure...The conductor then did a fantastic job of gradually twisting the brittle scherzo from the colourful to the demonic..." (The Times, October 2011)

“Karabits's gift for the endless, questing phrase, mirrored by the BSO's facility, makes this the perfect match.” (Independent on Sunday, August 2011)

“No wonder the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra announced last week that it had signed principal conductor Kirill Karabits for another three seasons. He has galvanised these players since he took over, and pushed them to new heights, giving a bright sheen to their line, a new purpose to hear them. They clearly love playing for him and grabbed every opportunity to thrill us with their classy reading of Rachmaninov's arching, aching second symphony.” (The Observer, August 2011)

"Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony is central to the repertoire, but this interpretation by Karabits and the BSO had supreme qualities that placed it in a class of its own. The playing was magnificent, finely balanced and with Rachmaninoff’s orchestral palette astutely deployed so that the textures radiated instrumental colour, collectively and individually. Karabits’s pacing and shaping of the symphony enhanced its cohesion. He was controlled but flexible. The organic nature of the music was strengthened, the spectrum of expression palpably emerging from deep within the score." (The Telegraph, August 2011)

"The performance of Respighi's Fountains of Rome was exceptional in its textural beauty and finesse. Karabits has a superb ear for orchestral colour" (The Guardian, April 2011)

"No, the real hero of this concert was conductor Kirill Karabits, under whose direction Respighi’s ‘Fountains of Rome’ and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony emerged in exhilaratingly vibrant garb." (The Independent, April 2011)

"This is now easily the best disc of Khachaturian's ballet music in the catalogue, full of vibrant life and seductive lyricism, and the recording (made this year in the Lighthouse, Poole) is first class in every respect. Not to be missed." (Gramophone, February 2011)

”Only 34 and making his debut with the orchestra, Karabits led one vivid performance after the next…He is a confident and appealing leader, and the results were impressive: cleanly etched playing by the orchestra, smartly shaped, energized and loaded with detail…The program ended with Rachmaninoff's "Symphonic Dances," his final orchestral work. Karabits brought this extroverted piece into cracklingly sharp focus, especially across the first two of its three movements.” (San Francisco Mercury News, January 2011)