You were raised in the Soviet Union. How aware were you growing up of Prokofiev’s Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution?

I had heard of it as I grew up in a musical family – my mother still teaches in the music academy and she specialises in 20th-century music. I knew it was written for a huge orchestra with some unusual instruments like accordions and so on and I thought, “well, it’d be nice to conduct it one day”.

Kirill Karabits. Photo © kirillkarabits.com

Then, when the Staatskapelle Weimar happened to want something unusual for their summer Kunstfest – this is an arts festival – I thought, “well, this piece needs a very special occasion, so this is probably the moment to do it”, because it was exactly 100 years since the Revolution. And in the first-half we had the Concerto for DJ and Turntables by Prokofiev’s grandson, Gabriel Prokofiev. When the Berlin radio said they would love to do a live broadcast, and by the way if you can find a label who would be interested in publishing the recording we would be very happy to give it to them, it...