In the autumn of 2016 Dima Slobodeniouk took up the position of principal conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the Sibelius Festival. He has also been music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia since September 2013, winning great acclaim for his imaginative programming and extensive repertoire knowledge.

Slobodeniouk combines native Russian roots with years of musical study in Finland. Drawing on the musical strengths of both countries, he conducts regularly all over the world. In the 2017–18 season he made successful débuts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also returned to the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and in August 2018 conducted for the first time at the Tanglewood Music Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of his 2018–19 season will include débuts with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (ORF) at the Musikverein, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and with the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich. Further afield, he will appear for the first time with, for instance, the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo), Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Minnesota Orchestra. He will also make return appearances with the WDR Symphony Orchestra (Cologne) and Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dima Slobodeniouk is a committed advocate of wide-ranging programmes ranging from Beethoven, Verdi, Mahler, Sibelius and Stravinsky to contemporary composers such as Jonathan Harvey, the Catalonian composer Benet Casablancas and also Magnus Lindberg, of whose Cello Concerto he gave the first Spanish performance. Among the soloists who have performed with him are Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Baiba Skride, Viktoria Mullova, Tine Thing Helseth, Anssi Karttunen, Ewa Podleś, Barbara Hannigan and Helena Juntunen.

Working with young musicians is of particular importance to Slobodeniouk; for example, he worked with music students at the 2015 Verbier Festival. He also established a project with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia in which, for ten days, students are given the chance to conduct a professional orchestra.

His recording with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra featuring Kalevi Aho’s Bassoon Concerto (BIS) won a prestigious BBC Music Magazine Award in 2018. Slobodeniouk’s recordings include works by Lotta Wennäkoski with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Ondine) and music by Sebastian Fagerlund with the Gothenburg Symphony (BIS).