Aziz Shokhakimov

Music Director of Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra
Artistic Director of Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra

Aziz Shokhakimov is Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Artistic Director of the Tekfen Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2015-2021 he held the position of Kapellmeister at Deutsche Oper am Rhein. His guest conducting has included orches-tras such as Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, WDR Sinfo-nieorchester Köln, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and hr-Sinfonieorchester. In North America he has conducted the symphony orchestras in Houston, Toronto and Seattle.

Recent and forthcoming engagements include Wiener Symphoniker, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonia Varsovia.

Aziz Shokhakimov is equally prolific in the operatic repertoire, with debuts at Opera National de Paris (Lucia de Lammermoor) and Bayerische Staatsoper (Pique Dame). As part of his tenure with Orchestre Philhar-monique de Strasbourg he conducted a new production of Wagner’s Lohengrin at Opera du Rhin, at Deutsche Oper am Rhein The Queen of Spades, Madame Butterfly, Salome and Tosca, among others.

Shokhakimov has an ongoing relationship with Salzburg Festival where, having been selected from more than 100 candidates, he won the prestigious Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award in August 2016. He returned to the Salzburg Festival in August 2017 for the prize-winner’s concert with RSO Wien and con-ducted the Opening Ceremony of Salzburg Festival with Patricia Kopatchinskaja in 2019.

Born in 1988 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Shokhakimov entered the Uspensky Music School for Gifted Children at the age of six, studying violin, viola and orchestral conducting (in the class of Professor Vladimir Neymer). At 13 he made his debut with National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan, conducting Beethoven’s Sympho-ny no. 5 and Liszt’s Piano Concerto no. 1. During the following year he conducted his first opera, Carmen, at the National Opera of Uzbekistan. He was appointed Assistant Conductor of National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan in 2001 and became its Principal Conductor in 2006. In 2010, at the age of just 21, Shokhakimov won second place at the Gustav Mahler International Conducting Competition in Bamberg, under the auspices of the Bamberger Symphoniker.