Vasily Petrenko becomes the Principal Guest Conductor of the State Orchestra
Starting from the season 2016/2017 Vasily Petrenko will take the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra “Evgeny Svetlanov” (Artistic Director - Vladimir Jurowski).
Vasily Petrenko (born 1976) is one of the most successful conductors of the middle generation. He is the head of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (UK) and the Oslo Philharmonic (Norway), acts as the principal conductor at the The European Union Youth Orchestra and as guest conductor in the Michailovsky Theatre (Saint Petersburg).
The musician graduated from Saint Petersburg Conservatory specializing in choral, opera and symphony conducting. In 2002 V. Petrenko became an owner of the Grand Prize of the international competition in Cadaques (Spain). Moreover, he is laureate of the competitions named after D. Shostakovich and S. Prokofiev.
Vasily Petrenko conducted the leading orchestras of Russia, USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Finland, and other countries. He also works with opera theatres in Hamburg, Zurich, Paris, Munich; have taken part in the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. His repertoire includes more than 30 operas, considerable number of symphonic pieces of different epochs. Vasily Petrenko produced recordings of operas Rothschild’s violn by V. Fleishman and The Gamblers by D. Shostakovich, alongside with all symphonies and piano concertos by S. Rachmaninov, all symphonies and cello concertos by D. Shostakovich, among others. At the moment, maestro is working on the recording of all symphonies by A. Skryabin with Oslo Philarmonic.
In 2007 Vasily Petrenko got the Gramophone magazine award “The best young musician of the year”, in 2010 he was proclaimed to be the best musician of the year during the award ceremony of the Classical Brit Awards. He is the honorable professor of the Liverpool University and Liverpool Hope University, was conferred the title “The honorary citizen of Liverpool”.
Vasily Petrenko has numerously performed with The State Academic Symphony Orchestra “Evgeny Svetlanov". First time he was on the podium of the orchestra on 16 February 2008 at the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory. In March 2013 the orchestra under his conduct took part in the mono-festival Music by S. Rachmaninov which took place at the Svetlanov Hall in the Moscow International House of Music. In 2014 a performance took place in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. With the soloist D. Kozhukhin, the orchestra performed pieces by F. Liszt, P. Tchaikovsky, S. Prokofiev, and L. Bernstein. In 2015 at the Grafenegg Music Festival (Austria) Petrentko and the orchestra presented the programme that included music by R. Schumann, P. Tchaikovsky, and S. Prokofiev which was a splendid success.
In the photo: Vasily Petrenko during the concert with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra "Evgeny Svetlanov" in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall on 26 December 2014 (photo by Vera Zhuravleva)