Valery Gergiev

Valery Gergiev is a vivid representative of the St Petersburg conducting school. His debut as a conductor at the Mariinsky (then Kirov) Theatre came in 1978 with Prokofiev's War and Peace. In 1988 Valery Gergiev was appointed Music Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, and in 1996 he became its Artistic and General Director.

With his arrival at the helm, it became a tradition to hold major festivals marking various anniversaries of composers. These festivals saw performances not only of well-known scores but also of rarely performed works or those never staged before at all. Through Gergiev's efforts the Mariinsky Theatre has revived Wagner's operas, by 2003 Der Ring des Nibelungen had been staged in full. That was the first complete Russian Ring production after an interval of almost a century and the first one in Russia to be performed in the original German.

Under Gergiev's direction the Mariinsky Theatre has become a major theatre and concert complex, without par anywhere in the world. His projects hosted by the Mariinsky Theatre include media broadcasting, on-line concert broadcasts and the establishment of a recording studio.

The Mariinsky Orchestra under Gergiev has scaled new heights, assimilating not just opera and ballet scores, but also an expansive symphony music repertoire including works by Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and many other composers.

Valery Gergiev's international activities are no less intensive. Having made debuts in 1991 at the Bayerische Staatsoper, in 1993 at Covent Garden and in 1994 at the Metropolitan Opera, he successfully continues to collaborate with the world's great opera houses. From 1995 to 2008 Gergiev was Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (he remains its honorary conductor to this day), and from 2007 to 2015 of the London Symphony Orchestra. Since autumn 2015 he has headed the Munich Philharmonic.

Valery Gergiev is the founder and director of prestigious international festivals including the Stars of the White Nights (since 1993) and the Moscow Easter Festival (since 2002). Since 2011 he has directed the organisational committee of the International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Valery Gergiev's musical and public activities have brought him prestigious State awards of Russia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, France and Japan.