Ukrainian conductor Andriy Yurkevych is currently the music director of the National Theatre in Prague, where he has recently conducted the operas L'elisir d'amore, La bohème, La traviata, Madama Butterfly, Nabucco, Roméo et Juliette, Tosca, Aida, Macbeth, Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci, in addition to numerous symphonic concerts.
He graduated in orchestral conducting from the State Academy of Music in Lviv, later specializing with Alberto Zedda and Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Winner of the special prize at the Turchak National Conducting Competition in Kiev, he began working as a permanent conductor at the State Opera and Ballet Theatre in Lviv. From 2007 to 2009 he was music director of the National Theatre in Odessa and from 2014 to 2017 music director of the National Theatre in Chisinau and the National Theatre in Warsaw.
In 2005 he made his debut at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome and thanks to his success he was soon invited to important theatres such as the Opéra in Monte Carlo, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Deutsche Opera in Berlin, Liceu in Barcelona, Municipal in Santiago de Chile, Greek National Opera in Athens, and the San Francisco Opera. Particularly interesting is the collaboration with the soprano Edita Gruberova, whom Andriy Yurkevych has conducted on several occasions.
Recent engagements include a new production of Don Carlo in Düsseldorf; Le duc d'Albe in Gent; Simon Boccanegra in Genoa and Bologna; Lucrezia Borgia in Tenerife, Budapest, Pécs, and Bologna; Lucia di Lammermoor in Darmstadt, Verona, and Nice; Evgeny Onegin, La Traviata, Le Rossignol, and Iolanta at the New National Theatre in Tokyo; Pagliacci in Genoa; Dvořák's Requiem and La traviata in Chișinău; Petite messe solennelle, Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in Łódź; Madama Butterfly in Nice. Upcoming engagements include: La sonnambula and Rigoletto in Stuttgart; Werther at the National Theatre in Tokyo.
