The InClassica International Music Festival‘s eleventh season has come to a festive end with its last concert on Thursday, June 2. The festival was a four-week celebration of classical music that showcased 50 world-renowned soloists, 3 leading orchestras and 11 celebrated conductors, with 26 performances that took place at Dubai Opera.

The concerts were attended by thousands who were serenaded by the calming tunes of classical music including business representatives, bloggers, government officials and embassy members. Some of the VIP guests included Tugay Tunçer, Ambassador of Turkey to the UAE; Akio Isomata, Ambassador of Japan to the UAE; Sekiguchi Noboru, Consul-General of Japan in Dubai; Holger Mahnicke, Consul-General of Germany in Dubai and Moon Byung Jun, Consul-General of the Republic of Korea in Dubai.

InClassica had a prestigious line-up of highly respected A-class international soloists. Every concert offers world-class classical musical performances. Several musicians performed at the festival for the first time including Hansjörg Schellenberger (conductor, Germany), Miran Vaupotić (conductor, Croatia), Julian Steckel (cello, Germany), Fumiaki Miura (violin, Japan) and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. All of the concerts were well-received but the audience was most interested in Fazil Say (piano, Turkey; Mikhail Pletnev (piano, Switzerland), Gil Shaham (violin, USA) and Daniel Hope (violin, UK).

The festival presented a diverse and engaging repertoire of well-known classics and contemporary masterpieces, including works by Verdi, Beethoven, Debussy, Mendelssohn, Strauss, Dvořák and Composer-in-Residence, Alexey Shor, a New York-based composer whose works have been performed in the most prestigious classical music venues in the world.

The Festival presented by SAMIT Event Group, a Dubai-based organization with a proven track record of delivering high quality, large-scale cultural projects, and had leading broadcasters Medici.tv and The Violin Channel, Euronews as official media partners for the Festival. The concerts were broadcast live and viewed by thousands across the globe. Also, the other partners of the Festival were CMDI, European Foundation for Support of Culture and Belcanto.

In addition to the festival’s schedule of world-class performances, SAMIT also held the third edition of the “Classic Strings” Violin and Cello International Competition in May. The event welcomed some of the finest young string players in the world to Dubai, for a competition celebrating the best of artistic excellence and technical prowess. The Cello winner was Michal Balas from Poland, and the Violin winner was Pocitari Dumitru from Moldova.

Aleksandra Mitiureva, Founder and CEO of SAMIT Event Group, commented on the closing of the season, “Similar to previous editions of the InClassica International Music Festival, many concerts were held at full capacity and the public’s interest is growing every year. Dubai is a multicultural city and this was especially noticeable in our audience. It’s amazing that classical music attracts people of different nationalities and ages. This was one of the reasons why we chose this city as the venue for the festival.”

Every year the InClassica International Music Festival features musicians who dedicate themselves to their craft for audiences who desire to listen to live classical music. Budding young talent meets some of the world’s most established and famous musicians — all this is a dedication to music, and the shared ideals of friendship and international cooperation that reside at the heart of culture and the arts worldwide.

Next year, the 12th edition of the InClassica International Music Festival will be held in Dubai from 11th February to 11th March 2023, with an even bigger line-up to celebrate classical music and bring together the cream of the crop in classical music performers. Though the 11th season was hosted purely by the Dubai Opera, the next year may see the concerts held in various venues across the Emirates.