Orest Smovzh Violinist
Ukrainian-born violinist Orest Smovzh is currently based in the United States.
Born in Lviv, Orest started to play the violin under the guidance of his mother and Nadiya Varyanko. For the last few years, he works under mentorship of Midori Gotō and is currently on scholarship at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Orest also studied with Mariya Futorska, Yaroslava Rivnyak, Dmytro Tkachenko, Qian Zhou in Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore, and USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles.
Orest collaborated in chamber performances with members of Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, musicians from Suntory Hall Chamber Music Academy, pianists Fazıl Say, Thomas Hoppe, Albert Tiu, cellist Michael Kannen and violinist Vadim Gluzman. He also worked on a diverse chamber repertoire with Gyorgy Takacs-Nagy, Jeffrey Kahane, Bernard Lanskey, Members of Tokyo String Quartet, Ellen Mack, Norman Fisher and Shlomo Mintz.
In addition to performing - Orest is dedicated to organizing festivals, promoting contemporary music and historically informed performance. Orest is the co-founder of such projects as Melaka Classics – a classical music project in Malaysia, Collegium Managment- one of the most vibrant concert organizations of Ukraine, Dzenzelivka Classical Week - the first Ukrainian chamber music festival in a village, where he served as the Artistic Director for 8 years. He commissioned and premiered around 40 works from leading composers of Ukraine, as well as Singapore and USA. As a soloist, Orest took part in historically informed performances with Masaaki Suzuki, also working with Nigel North, Ryo Terakado, and received continuous coachings from Adam and Rotem Gilbert. In numerous outreach projects with Midori, Orest performed at orphanages, jails, hospitals and halfway homes in towns of Baja California, Mexico, Los Angeles, as well as schools in Sendai, Japan.
Orest had an inspirational pleasure of participating in masterclasses and lessons with Vadym Repin, Ilya Gringolts, Ivry Gitlis, Pierre Amoyal, Nam Yun Kim, Pinchas Zukerman, Augustin Dumay, Petru Munteanu, Kszysztof Węgrzyn, Takashi Shimizu and David Takeno.
Winner of 2015 Tadeusz Wroński Violin Solo Competition, and a finalist of 2018 George Enescu Violin Competition – Orest appeared as a soloist with George Enescu Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Yamagata Symphony Orchestra, Uzbekistan National Symphony Orchestra, Lublin Philharmonic Orchestra and number of Ukrainian orchestras in such iconic halls as Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Hitashi Systems Hall in Sendai among others.
Orest’s artistic geography includes numerous countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
