Conductor Vitali Alekseenok will receive the Taormina International Award 2026. The award will be presented to the chief conductor of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein this Saturday evening at the Taobuk Book Festival in Sicily. At the gala in the ancient theater, the Belarus-born conductor will lead the orchestra of the Teatro Massimo Bellini from Catania, where he has been principal guest conductor since 2021.

Vitali Alekseenok

The career of 35-year-old Alekseenok testifies "to an understanding of music not only as an art of precision and expression, but as a language capable of addressing the deepest questions of our time," explained festival founder Antonella Ferrara. This understanding finds particular expression in his work as artistic director of the KharkivMusicFest in Ukraine. "During the war, when Kharkiv was being bombed, you continued to bring music to the city's air-raid shelters, subway stations, and hospitals, conducting between explosions for an audience that had gathered not just to listen, but to hold on to a piece of itself," Ferrara emphasized, addressing the conductor.

Other award winners this year include the writers Haruki Murakami, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Jonathan Coe and Dacia Maraini, the poet Adonis, the actress and director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, the sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor, the jazz singer Nicky Nicolai and the jazz musician Stefano Di Battista.

The Taobuk Book Festival is taking place for the 16th time this year. It is considered one of Italy's most important literary and cultural festivals. The International Taormina Award is presented to leading figures in literature, film, music, and visual arts, including the writers Isabel Allende and Mario Vargas Llosa, the performance artists Marina Abramović and Ai Weiwei, the composer Nicola Piovani, and the violinist David Garrett.

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