Amphitheater Podium Offers Another Step Up

Russian conductor Dmitri Liss, who leads the Pacific Symphony’s final summer concert Saturday at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, has racked up successes in Kuzbass, Omsk, the Ural area--places that are not household names for most Southern Californians.

“Dmitri, simply by a matter of geography, doesn’t have the wide reputation that he deserves,” Pacific Symphony assistant conductor Mark Mandarano said recently from his home in Long Beach.

“He’s working in Russia. Unless you’re working in the two major [Russian] cities, you don’t have that much access to Europe and America.”

The two traded conducting duties during a 1997 American-Russian Youth Orchestra tour of both their countries and were fast friends by the end, said Mandarano, assistant at the Pacific Symphony since 1999.

“He was an absolutely brilliant conductor and one of the few I’ve seen who has insights into every aspect of conducting, not just knowledge of the score, but the ability to relate ideas to people and keep a sense of humor and poetry alive in a performance.”

Liss remembers the shared experiences fondly.

“We Russians have traditions of performing music, but I must tell you, when I was working with the American-Russian Youth Orchestra--which I did for three years--I didn’t feel any difference until [the musicians] began speaking,” he said.

Liss, 40, was talking from his home in Yekaterinburg, Russia, where he lives with his wife, composer Olga Victorova, and their two sons. The couple met when they were music students and were married in 1983.

Liss was born in the small city of Balashov. His parents were doctors. His older brother also studied music at the same school, but turned to sports after graduating.

“I started with violin for four years, then switched to clarinet, then flute and the history of music when I was a schoolboy,” Liss said.

At 18 he entered the Moscow State Conservatory, where he studied conducting.

“The man who taught me clarinet had a dream of becoming a conductor himself. He failed, but he pushed me toward it, and it was my wish too. That’s why I studied the history of music.”

He worked as an assistant conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic, but decided to leave the city and lead a regional orchestra in Siberia.

“I had to work as much as I could as a conductor,” he said. “When I was only 23, I began working as a conductor of the Kuzbass Symphony in Siberia. I was there almost 12 years.”

In 1991, he was promoted to principal conductor of the orchestra, making him the youngest chief conductor in Russia at that time.

In 1995 he became artistic director of the Ural Philharmonic, “one of the best orchestras in Russia,” he said.

Liss also won the first International Competition of Young Conductors in Zagreb. That began drawing international attention.

He made his debut with the Russian National Orchestra in 1997, led it on an annual tour of the Volga region the next year and, shortly after touring internationally with the ensemble, became its associate conductor in 1998.

It was in that role that Liss stepped in twice at Hollywood Bowl in 1999 to conduct the orchestra after founder Mikhail Pletnev injured his foot.

Mandarano was at those concerts and made sure that the Pacific Symphony’s administration saw the reviews.

“I was really happy for him to have such an auspicious debut here,” Mandarano said. “I said, ‘You really need to look into this guy.’ That led directly to the Pacific Symphony concert where he will be conducting selections by Tchaikovsky including the “1812 Overture,” Variations on a Rococo Theme, “Capriccio Italien,” Valse Scherzo for Violin and Orchestra, and waltzes from “Sleeping Beauty,” “Nutcracker” and “Swan Lake.”

“I knew if he came in and did the least concert with any orchestra, he would be immediately reengaged. He will win over the audience and he will win over the orchestra as well. They’ll have great respect for him.”

Liss has come a long way from his hometown of Yekaterinburg. That city is a constant reminder of the upheavals his country has undergone.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yekaterinburg--which was renamed Sverdlovsk in 1924 to honor a Communist leader--reverted to its old name.

It already held a place in the history books as the site where Czar Nicholas II and his family were imprisoned and killed by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution.

“The situation is very complicated,” Liss said. “Of course, there are lots of people who are suffering. This change in the political system is not so easy. You need time to build something new.”

But it’s impossible to turn back, Liss said.

“For me, things have gotten better. I have much more freedom to establish my own connections, contacts, to be independent of officials, and much more possibilities,” Liss said. “My international career as a guest conductor is just beginning.”

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Dmitri Liss conducts the Pacific Symphony in a Tchaikovsky program, Saturdayat Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, 8808 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. 8 p.m. $18 to $67. (714) 744-5799 or (949) 855-8096.