Valery Gergiev

V A L E R Y G E R G I E V
Valery Gergiev is internationally recognized as one of the most outstanding musical figures of his generation. His inspired leadership as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he oversees the Kirov Orchestra, Ballet and Opera, has brought universal acclaim to this legendary institution. Together with the Kirov Opera and Orchestra, Maestro Gergiev has toured extensively in 45 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.
Principal Conductor Designate of the London Symphony beginning January 2007, he is also the Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Principal Guest Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, and Founder and Artistic Director of “Stars of the White Nights” Festival in St. Petersburg, the Moscow Easter Festival, the Gergiev Rotterdam Festival; the Mikkeli International Festival in Finland, and is inaugurating the Kievskaya Russe Festiva in the Ukraine. Maestro Gergiev guest conducts a select number of orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony and the Vienna Philharmonic.
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 in 1978 with War and Peace, was appointed Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Kirov Opera in 1988, and named Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre in 1996. In 2003 he celebrated his 50th birthday, his 25th anniversary with the Mariinsky Theatre and oversaw a considerable portion of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg festivities by producing an unprecedented three-month “Stars of the White Nights” Festival. In the same year he conducted both Season Opening Galas of the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall Season, the latter with the Kirov Orchestra.
That 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.”
In the 2004-2005 season, Valery Gergiev initiated a worldwide series of charity concerts entitled Beslan: Music for Life. Under the Maestro’s direction, concerts were held in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Rome and Moscow. Further highlights included a seventeen-city Kirov Orchestra tour of North America with a three-concert residency at Carnegie Hall. In November of 2005, Valery Gergiev and the legendary French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez conducted the Kirov Orchestra on the stage of Palais Garnier, Opéra National de Paris for a Mariinsky Theatre Gala. Masestro Gergiev conducted The Kirov (Mariinsky) Opera Company in Shostakovich’s The Nose at Opéra Bastille, and conducted Richard Wagner´s Tristan und Isolde at the Opéra National de Paris.
In March of 2006, Maestro Gergiev begins a seven concert series at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center New York of the complete symphonies (15) of Dmitri Shostakovich to celebrate the composer’s centenary. This festival includes both the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre as well as tour appearances across the United States. This Shostakovich Celebration will continue with concerts in London with the London Symphony, the Kirov Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the “Stars of the White Nights” Festival this summer, he will share the fifteen Shostakovich symphonies and the Kirov Orchestra podium with conductors Christoph Eschenbach, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paavo Järvi, Maris Jansons, Maxim Shostakovich and Riccardo Muti. At the same festival, the Kirov Ballet and Opera will present Shostakovich’s The Young Lady and the Hooligan, The Overcoat, The Golden Age, The Nose, and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
The Kirov Opera’s appearances in North America will include its annual appearance at the Kennedy Center and presentations of the Mariinsky Theatre’s production of Richard Wagner’s Ring in the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Costa Mesa, California in 2006 and in the Metropolitan Opera House in July of 2007.
Maestro Gergiev is the recipient of many international awards, including the Dmitri Shostakovich Award; the Golden Mask Award, the most prestigious theater prize in Russia; the People’s Artist of Russia, the country’s highest cultural award; the World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award; and the EastWest Institute’s 25th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his leadership and passionate service to humanity. Others presented with the EastWest Award were Tony Blair, Prime Minister of England and Sanford Weill, Chairman for Citigroup. He has been awarded the 2006 Polar Music Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, the art world’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize; the 2006 ‘Distinctive Contribution’ Award of the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation in Washington DC; and in July 2006 will be presented with the Herbert von Karajan Prize for outstanding living musicians.
He has recorded exclusively for Universal on the Philips Decca and Deutsche Grammophon labels since 1989. His vast discography includes numerous Russian operas performed by the Kirov Opera, a cycle of Shostakovich “War Symphonies” (Nos.4-9) with the Kirov and Rotterdam Orchestras, and Tchaikovsky, Berlioz and Mussorgsky Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic.

03/06
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