Artists

Biography:

Vasily Petrenko took up the post of Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2006. Since 1994 he has been Chief Conductor of the State Academy Orchestra of St Petersburg.

Born in 1976, he started his music education at the St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – the oldest music school in Russia. He then studied at the St Petersburg Conservatoire and has also participated in masterclasses with such major figures as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons, Yuri Temirkanov and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

During the last few years Vasily Petrenko has had considerable success in a number of international conducting competitions including the Fourth Prokofiev Conducting Competition in St Petersburg (2003), First Prize in the Shostakovich Choral Conducting Competition in St Petersburg (1997) and First Prize in the Sixth Cadaqués International Conducting Competition in Spain (2002).

Between 1994 and 1997, Petrenko was Resident Conductor at the St Petersburg State Opera and Ballet Theatre in the Mussorgsky Memorial Theatre. During this time he gained an enormous amount of operatic experience and he now has over 30 operas in his repertoire. In March 2004 he made a highly successful debut at the Hamburg State Opera conducting Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame. During recent seasons Petrenko has conducted many key orchestras in Russia including the St Petersburg Philharmonic and the Moscow Philharmonic.

Petrenko is equally at home in symphonic and operatic repertoire. Petrenko’s guest conducting appearances have included engagements with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and La Monnaie Opera (Brussels).

The 2006-07 season saw his US debut with the Milwaukee and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras and in Europe with the NDR Radiophilharmonie, Hannover. Return engagements include working with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and with the Cadaqués and Castilla y León Orchestras in Spain, and in a production of Boris Godunov with the Netherlands Reisopera.