The I, CULTURE Orchestra will undertake its fourth summer tour in August 2014, culminating in the ensemble’s debut at the Edinburgh International Festival. Following a highly successful tour together in 2013, Kirill Karabits returns to the orchestra to conduct a programme of Panufnik and Shostakovich. The tour also includes concerts in Kultursommer Nordhessen Kassel and La Roque D’Antheron, with Alice Sara Ott as soloist in Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.1.

The I, CULTURE Orchestra is an outstanding ensemble comprised of some of the most talented young musicians from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine. The orchestra was formed in 2011 by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the cultural programme of the Polish Presidency of the EU. The ICO’s twin aims are to form a great orchestra of international young musicians and to create an outstanding and innovative vehicle for positive cultural and social co-operation and international development. Following an audition process, the young players gather together each summer in Poland for a period of workshops and rehearsals before embarking on an international tour.

The orchestra undertook its inaugural tour in 2011 under Sir Neville Marriner and Pavel Kotla, performing to great acclaim in some of Europe’s leading concert halls including the Berliner Philharmonie, London’s Royal Festival Hall and the Teatro Real in Madrid. 2012 featured a return to the orchestra’s cultural homeland, with concerts across Eastern Europe in a tour conducted by young Venezuelan Ilyich Rivas. The 2013 tour saw concerts in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Estonia, with soloists Truls Mørk and Khatia Buniatishvili.