Valery Gergiev

Principal Conductor

Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra since January 2007, Valery Gergiev performs regularly with the LSO at the Barbican, at the Proms and at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as on regular tours of Europe, North America and Asia. During the 2010/11 season he will lead them in appearances in Germany, France, Switzerland, Japan and the US.

Valery Gergiev is also Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, founder and Artistic Director of the Stars of the White Nights Festival and New Horizons Festival in St Petersburg, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival, the Mikkeli International Festival, and the Red Sea Festival in Eilat, Israel. He succeeded Sir Georg Solti as conductor of the World Orchestra for Peace in 1998 and leads them this season in concerts in Abu Dhabi.

His inspired leadership of the Mariinsky Theatre since 1988 has taken the Mariinsky ensembles to 45 countries and has brought universal acclaim to this legendary institution, now in its 227th season. Having opened a new concert hall in St Petersburg in 2006, Maestro Gergiev looks forward to the opening of the new Mariinsky Opera House in the summer of 2012.

Born in Moscow, Valery Gergiev studied conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory. Aged 24 he won the Herbert von Karajan Conductors’ Competition in Berlin and made his Mariinsky Opera debut one year later in 1978 conducting Prokofiev’s War and Peace. In 2003 he led St Petersburg’s 300th anniversary celebrations, and opened the Carnegie Hall season with the Mariinsky Orchestra, the first Russian conductor to do so since Tchaikovsky conducted the Hall’s inaugural concert in 1891.

Now a regular figure in all the world’s major concert halls, he will lead the LSO and the Mariinsky Orchestra in a symphonic Centennial Mahler Cycle in New York in the 2010/11 season.  He has led several cycles in New York including Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Berlioz and Richard Wagner’s Ring. He has also introduced audiences to several rarely-performed Russian operas.  

Valery Gergiev’s many awards include a Grammy, the Dmitri Shostakovich Award, the Golden Mask Award, People’s Artist of Russia Award, the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, Netherlands’ Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion, Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun, Valencia’s Silver Medal, the Herbert von Karajan prize and the French Order of the Legion of Honour.

He has recorded exclusively for Decca (Universal Classics), and appears also on the Philips and Deutsche Grammophon labels. Currently recording for LSO Live, his releases include Mahler Symphonies Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, Rachmaninov Symphony No 2, Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet and Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle.

His recordings on the newly formed Mariinsky Label are Shostakovich The Nose and Symphonies Nos 1, 2, 11 & 15, Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture, Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 3 and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Shchedrin The Enchanted Wanderer and Stravinsky Les Noces and Oedipus Rex, many of which have won awards including four Grammy nominations. The most recent release was Wagner Parsifal (September 2010), featuring René Pape and Gary Lehman.