Valery Gergiev, conductor
Valery Gergiev’s inspired leadership as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre has brought universal acclaim to this legendary institution.  Together with the Kirov Opera, Ballet and Orchestra, Maestro Gergiev has toured in forty-five countries including extensive tours throughout North America, South America, Europe, China, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Jordan and Israel. 
 
Maestro Gergiev is currently Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Principal Guest Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and, beginning in January 2007, Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.  He is Founder and Artistic Director of the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival; the Mikkeli International Festival, the Moscow Easter Festival and the Stars of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia. 
 
Born in Moscow to Ossetian parents, Maestro Gergiev studied conducting with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory.  At age 24, he was the winner of the Herbert von Karajan Conductors’ Competition in Berlin.  He made his Kirov Opera debut one year later in 1978 conducting Prokofiev’s War and Peace and was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor in 1988. 
In 2003 he celebrated his 25th anniversary with the Mariinsky Theatre, planned and led a considerable portion of St. Petersburg’s 300th anniversary celebration, conducted the globally televised anniversary gala attended by fifty heads of state, and opened the Carnegie Hall season with the Kirov Orchestra, the first Russian conductor to do so since Tchaikovsky conducted the first-ever concert in Carnegie Hall.  That same fall The Wall Street Journal observed, “The Mariinsky Theatre’s artistic agenda under Mr. Gergiev’s leadership has burgeoned into a diplomatic and ultimately a broadly humanistic one, on a global scale not even the few classical musicians of comparable vision approach.” 

Maestro Gergiev is the recipient of the Dmitri Shostakovich Award, the Golden Mask Award, the People’s Artist of Russia, and the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award.

 He has recorded exclusively for Philips (Universal Classics) since 1989.  His vast discography includes many Russian operas (introduced to international audiences by his initiative), a cycle of Shostakovich “War Symphonies” (Nos.4-9), and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic.

For more information on Valery Gergiev, please visit  
www.valerygergiev.com
www.mariinsky.ru/en/orchestra/conductors/gergiev
www.wnfa.org/