Ilya Stupel llya Stupel – a rising star in the musical firmament who has been described as one of the greatest conducting talents in the world – was born on 13th December 1949 in Vilnius, Lithuania. He grew up in a family whose rich musical traditions went back for several generations. He first started playing the piano aged only three, and was referred to as a child prodigy after he had joined the Conservatory in Vilnius. In 1957 llya Stupel moved to Poland where he continued his musical training, at the same time he was engaged as assistant to the famous conductor and teacher Bohdan Wodiczko of the Katowice Radio Symphony Orchestra (WOSPR). Stupel’s Jewish descent has had a strong bearing on his fortunes, and every time his career has seemed to be in thc ascendant he and his family have been forced to tear up their roots and start again in another country. So it was that in 1968 Stupel and his family fled Poland and settled in their present home country, Sweden. After comprehensivc studies in Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Denmark and Italy (conducting, composition, piano and jazz) Stupel dcvotcd himself to composing and to his new appointment as conductor at the Marlmö Municipal Theatre. After a number of years of work in Scandinavia (as Head of Music at the theatre in Helsingborg and appearances in Malmö, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Aalborg, Aarhus etc.) and beyond (U.S.A., Spain, France), he was in 1990 appointed Head of the renowned Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Lodz, Poland, which has worked with such conductors as Stokowsky, Kletzki and Khatchaturian. Critics have declared unanimously that Stupel’s great strength as a conductor is his ability, by means of his unorthodox interpretations, full of vitality and sheer musicianship, to reach out to every single member of his audience, as witness the enthusiasm that greets all his performances and follows him from appearence to appearence.
