The Symphony Orchestra of the Kurmangazy Kazakh National Conservatory
The ethno-folk group Turan

The Kazakh National Kurmangazy Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra
The Kazakh National Kurmangazy Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1947. The first conductor and Artistic Director of the ensemble was Konstantin Bayev. Over the years, the orchestra has been led by such outstanding conductors as Leonid Shargorodsky, Fuat Mansurov, Georgy Gotsiridze, Valery Rutter, Nurlan Zharasov and Tolepbergen Abdrashev.
In recent years, the orchestra has worked closely with French conductors Christophe Mangou and Nicolas Krüger as well as with Alexander Sladkovsky (Russia), Benjamin Yusupov (Israel) and Jan Moritz Onken (Germany).
Since 2008 the orchestra has been led by Kanat Omarov, a graduate of the Kazakh National Kurmangazy Conservatoire.
On numerous occasions the conservatoire’s Symphony Orchestra has taken part in prestigious music festivals such as Young Euro Classic in Germany and the  Accademia San Felice in Italy to name but a few.
Each year the ensemble tours throughout Kazakhstan. Starting in 2005 its tour geography has expanded significantly. The conservatoire’s Symphony Orchestra has performed at such renowned venues as the Barbican Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall as well as major halls in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Montecatini, Florence, Arezzo, Berlin, Frankenberg, Kassel and Bonn. The newspapers The Independent, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune and the  Berliner Morgenpost have all given reviews of the orchestra’s concerts, several of which have been broadcast by television companies including Deutsche Welle and ZDF.
In 2013 the orchestra will be appearing at the renowned Edinburgh Festival.

The folklore ethnographic ensemble Turan
The folklore ethnographic ensemble Turan was founded in 2008 on the initiative of its members, students of the Kazakh National Kurmangazy Conservatoire. The stimulus for forming the ensemble came from a desire to recreate the sound of archaic instruments and find new ways of performing folklore and ethnographic music.
The unique nature of the ensemble becomes apparent from the very first sounds of any composition the musicians perform: the forms of their works resemble examples of early instrumental and vocal works and the ensemble sounds unusual in as much as the musicians, along with widely available folk instruments, use others that are rarely heard, even in professional circles. Using accompanying lighting techniques and sound equipment, the musicians move around the stage artistically and with ease, creating images and unforgettable scenes of past and present.
The musicians in the ensemble have been prize-winners at numerous competitions and festivals of folk music in addition to participating in prestigious concerts, both in Kazakhstan and abroad in France, Israel, Turkey, Germany, South Korea and the USA.
In 2010 the ensemble released its first CD album. Despite its relative artistic youth, the ensemble has roused tremendous interest among audiences in Kazakhstan and abroad.
The folklore ethnographic ensemble Turan is a recipient of a grant from the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Tatarstan.