Biography

Acclaimed by both musicians and audiences for his dynamic leadership and exhilarating interpretations, Dima Slobodeniouk stands among the most respected conductors today.

Slobodeniouk collaborates with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

In the 2025/26 season, Dima Slobodeniouk returns to the U.S. to lead the New York Philharmonic, as well as Boston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Houston Symphony Orchestras and makes his debut with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He opens the season with a return to the Tanglewood Music Festival, where he conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in two programs and leads a performance with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. This summer also sees him with The Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival and leading the Seoul Philharmonic as part of the Lotte Hall Festival. Other season highlights include appearances with WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Dresden Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands
Radio Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic, and Antwerp Symphony Orchestras. He will conduct the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in a program featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 for the New Year’s Eve concerts and will also lead this work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra to close their 2025/26 season.

Soloists with whom he has collaborated include Leif Ove Andsnes, Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Khatia Buniatishvili, Seong-Jin Cho, Isabelle Faust, Kirill Gerstein, Barbara Hannigan, Håkan Hardenberger, Alexandre Kantorow, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Beatrice Rana, Yuja Wang, and Frank Peter Zimmermann.

Known for his musical expertise and interpretive depth, Slobodeniouk is also an acclaimed recording artist. Recent notable recordings include Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Nicolas Altstaedt (Alpha) which received an ICMA Award. His latest release on the BIS label features Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, Symphony in C and Symphonies of Wind Instruments recorded with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, where he served as Music Director. Other releases on this label include works by Kalevi Aho with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, winner of the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award, a subsequent disc of Aho’s Sieidi and Fifth Symphony, as well as a disc featuring music inspired by the Finnish folk epic, the Kalevala. For the Ondine label, Slobodeniouk has recorded works by Perttu Haapanen and Lotta Wennäkoski with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Slobodeniouk studied with Ukrainian violinist Olga Parkhomenko at Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy, graduating in 2001. It was there that he also took up his conducting studies with Leif Segerstam, Jorma Panula, and Atso Almila.

Dima Slobodeniouk served as Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia from 2013 to 2022, Principal Conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra from 2016 to 2021, and the Artistic Director of the Sibelius Festival. Together with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, he built an extensive and highly acclaimed media library of live concert recordings in recent years. A passionate believer in widening opportunity, he launched a conducting initiative during his tenure, giving aspiring conductors podium time with a professional orchestra and the opportunity to work with him on selected repertoire.