The talented and charismatic, world-renowned conductor VASILY PETRENKO has been Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2021 and Principal Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra since 2015. After a highly successful fifteen-year tenure as Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (2006-2021), he is now the Conductor Laureate of the ensemble. He was Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013-2020), Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2009-2013) and Principal Guest Conductor of the St Petersburg Mikhailovsky Theatre, where he began his career as a Resident Conductor at the age of 18 (1994-1997). He was also Principal Guest Conductor and subsequently Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia from 2016 to 2022, when, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he suspended his work in Russia until peace would be restored.
Born in Leningrad in 1976, he graduated from the Glinka Choral College and Rimsky-Korsakov St. Petersburg State Conservatory. Hе studied conducting principally under Ravil Martynov, and attended master classes of famous figures such as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons, Yuri Temirkanov and Esa – Pekka Salonen. At the age of 21, he won 1st prize at the International Dmitri Shostakovich Competition for Choral Conductors in St. Petersburg. In 2002 he won the Grand Prize at the Cadaqués Orchestra International Conducting Competition, the following year receiving the Second Prize at the Sergei Prokofiev International Conducting Competition in St Petersburg.
Petrenko has conducted many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras such as: Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Israel Philharmonic.
He has participated in the renowned festivals in Edinburgh, London (BBC Proms), Aspen, Cleveland (Blossom Music Festival), Chicago (Ravinia), etc. The Maestro’s operatic repertoire includes over 30 titles. He has collaborated with major opera houses such as the Hamburg Opera (Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades), the Paris Opera (Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin), the Zurich Opera (Bizet’s Carmen, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District), the Bavarian State Opera (Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov), the Metropolitan Opera (Queen of Spades), etc. As a principal guest conductor at the Mikhailovsky Theatre he staged Puccini’s La bohème, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Carmen and Eugene Onegin. He has performed Puccini’s Tosca, Wagner’s Parsifal and The Flying Dutchman, Verdi’s Falstaff with English orchestras.
Vasily Petrenko has an impressively extensive orchestral repertoire. His recordings have been released by worldwide labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Onyx Records, Sony Classical, Warner Classics and others, include: symphonic works by Rachmaninoff (for his Second and Third Symphonies he was awarded the German ECHO Klassik Prize in 2012) and all of the composer’s piano concertos (with soloist Simon Trpcheski), complete Tchaikovsky’s symphonies (the recording of the Manfred Symphony was awarded the Gramophone Prize in 2009). Naxos Records released an Integral with Shostakovich’s symphonies in 2015. In the same year it recorded all of Scriabin’s symphonies and the symphonic poems of Richard Strauss. Studio recordings capture his interpretations of works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi, Britten, Elgar, Tavener, Wolf Ferrari, Albeniz, Offenbach and others.
The conductor was honoured with prestigious awards – Young Artist of the Year in 2007 and Artist of the Year in 2017 by the prestigious Gramophone magazine. In 2010 he was named ‘Artist of the Year’ at the Classical BRIT Awards. Petrenko is only the second person to have been awarded Honorary Doctorates by both the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Hope University. He was also awarded the title of Honorary Fellow of John Moores University and Honorary Citizen of Liverpool, awards which recognise the immense impact he has had on the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the city’s cultural scene.