Orest Smovzh

About: Orest Smovzh is a concert violinist and chamber musician. He is a member of various orchestras and also frequently performs solo violin recitals. Over the past twenty years of performing, he has played music with a wide repertoire, from Renaissance and Early Baroque to contemporary classical music. Over the past twelve years, Smovzh has commissioned or premiered around forty works by leading Ukrainian composers.

In concerts, he combines 20th-century classics and newly-commissioned works with a more well-known repertoire as a way of offering a fresh perspective to the concert experience and to promote new music. He consistently performs works that have never been heard before in Ukraine, and regularly introduces Ukrainian music to audiences in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia.

  • Since 2012 he has collaborated with the Collegium Musicum Management in Lviv on various projects
  • Between 2012 and 2017 he devised several programmes for the Rivne Philharmonic that included world premieres of works by Oleh Bezborodko, Vitalii Vyshynskyi, and Borys Lohinov
  • Between 2009 and 2017 Smovzh managed the first chamber music festival to be located in a Ukrainian village, which hosted around sixty concerts, accompanied by lectures and presentations
  • Since 2004 he has performed with Ukrainian orchestras and has been broadcast on international radio

International performances and experience:

  • Since 2011 he has participated at festivals in the USA, Japan, Romania, Italy, Georgia, Malaysia, Israel, Poland, Uzbekistan, and Singapore
  • He has also premiered works by Ukrainian contemporary composers at recitals in the USA, Spain, Poland, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, and Australia
  • Smovzh has participated in international competitions held in Poland, Singapore, Japan, Romania, Denmark, and Germany
  • He has also worked with outreach projects at orphanages, jails, hospitals, and halfway homes: including Baja California, Mexico, Los Angeles, USA, in 2017; in Sendai, Japan; and Baltimore, USA, in 2019

Contact: [email protected]