Dima Slobodeniouk and violinist Leonidas Kavakos

Finland-based Russian conductor Dima Slobodeniouk returns to Tanglewood and joins violinist Leonidas Kavakos in Felix Mendelssohn’s buoyant Violin Concerto, one of the most popular works in the genre, and works by Debussy, and Ravel.

Henri Dutilleux — Métaboles
Felix Mendelssohn — Violin Concerto
Claude Debussy — Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun
Maurice Ravel — Mother Goose (complete)

Henri Dutilleux’s 1964 Métaboles features the French composer’s intricately imaginative scoring and his innovative, organic approach to form, the BSO Says. Claude Debussy’s revolutionary Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, a contemplation of a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, is one of the clearest sources of 20th-century musical modernism. Maurice Ravel composed his Mother Goose for a friend’s children to play on piano, but its incisive character sketches and the brilliant orchestral canvas he later created make it a satisfying piece for any listener.

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Born and brought up in a musical family in Athens, internationaly recognized violinist Leonidas Kavakos performs around the globe, from the Verbier Festival, where he appeared in recital with Evgent Kissin and conducted the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra in a program in which he played Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Antoine Tamestit, to regular Tanglewood appearances with leading festival musicians — YoYo Ma, Emanuel Ax and more.

He curates an annual violin and chamber-music masterclass in Athens, which attracts violinists and ensembles from all over the world and reflects his deep commitment to the handing on of musical knowledge and traditions. Part of this tradition is the art of violin and bow-making, which Kavakos regards as a great mystery and to this day, an undisclosed secret. He plays the ‘Willemotte’ Stradivarius violin of 1734 and owns modern violins made by F. Leonhard, S.P. Greiner, E. Haahti and D. Bagué.

In recent years, Kavakos has succeeded in building a strong profile as a conductor and has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Gürzenich Orchester, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Filarmonica Teatro La Fenice, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.

In the forthcoming season he will return to two orchestras where he has developed close ties as both violinist and conductor: L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. This season he also play/conducts the Czech Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.

Tickets tonight include admission to 6 p.m. Prelude Concert — tonight with TMC Fellows.