Main Career
In the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, he was the conductor for Van Cliburn, who won the first prize. After the competition he toured the United States with Cliburn, being the first Russian conductor to visit America since the Cold War began. They performed and recorded the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.3 and Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1, which they had played in the competition. The recordings easily sold millions of copies in America. Later, in 1972, a live performance of Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 reunited Cliburn and Kondrashin with the Moscow Philharmonic in Moscow; RCA Victor eventually released the performance, along with a studio recording of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, on CD. He was also the artistic director of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra from 1960 to 1975. During this period he premiered Shostakovich's Symphony No.4 in December 1961 and No.13 the following year. He gave several performances in Europe and America with other famous Russian musicians like Rostropovich, Oistrakh, and Sviatoslav Richter.
Read more about this topic: Kirill Kondrashin
Famous quotes containing the words main and/or career:
“Many women are reluctant to allow men to enter their domain. They don’t want men to acquire skills in what has traditionally been their area of competence and one of their main sources of self-esteem. So while they complain about the male’s unwillingness to share in domestic duties, they continually push the male out when he moves too confidently into what has previously been their exclusive world.”
—Bettina Arndt (20th century)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)