Conductor Semyon Bychkov is best known for his interpretations of the core repertoire, but has also worked closely with many exceptional contemporary composers such as Luciano Berio, Henri Dutilleux and Maurizio Kagel, and currently with Julian Anderson, among others. He is on the podium of all major opera and concert houses in the USA and Europe. In addition to his position as principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, he holds honorary degrees from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Academy of Music. In 2015, Bychkov was named Conductor of the Year by the International Opera Awards jury.Born in 1952 in what was then Leningrad, Bychkov enjoyed an exceptionally privileged musical education from the age of five, studying piano. He began conducting lessons at the age of 13. Four years later, he was admitted to the Leningrad Conservatory as a student of Ilya Musin. When, after winning the influential Rachmaninoff Conducting Competition, he was denied the prize to conduct the Leningrad Philharmonic because of his political views, Bychkov left the former Soviet Union and emigrated to the United States in 1975. He returned to Europe in the mid-1980s and began his international career, filling in several times for well-known colleagues and conducting orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest. In 1997 he became chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, and a year later chief conductor of the Dresden Semper Opera.