Biography
Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he took on in 2021, becoming Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra following his hugely acclaimed fifteen-year tenure as their Chief Conductor from 2006-2021. He is Chief Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (since 2015), the Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and has also served as Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013-2020) and Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2009–2013). He stood down as Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ in 2021 having been their Principal Guest Conductor from 2016 and Artistic Director from 2020.
Born in 1976, Petrenko was educated at the St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – Russia’s oldest music school – and the St Petersburg Conservatoire where he participated in masterclasses with such luminary figures as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov. He began his career as Resident Conductor (1994–1997) of St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre. He has worked with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, NHK Symphony and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, and in North America has lead the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Montreal Symphony Orchestras. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and made frequent appearances at the BBC Proms. Equally at home in the opera house, and with over thirty operas in his repertoire, Vasily Petrenko has conducted widely on the operatic stage, including at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zürich, the Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Recent News
The 2023 BBC Proms are Announced!
The 2023 BBC Proms, “the world’s greatest classical music festival”, return with 71 concerts throughout the UK from 14 July through The Last Night of the Proms celebration, featuring cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, on 9 September. Conductors Semyon Bychkov, Vladimir...
Vasily Petrenko’s New Album “Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 5 ‘Emperor’ & 0” Available Now
Conductor Vasily Petrenko's new album Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 5 'Emperor' & 0 is available now on Naxos Records. This album follows a successful release of Beethoven's First and Second Piano Concertos in 2020, featuring Boris Glitburg and the Royal...
Statement from Vasily Petrenko
The tragedy unfolding in Ukraine is already one of the greatest moral failures and humanitarian disasters of our century. The historic and cultural ties between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, of which I am proud, can never be used to justify Russia’s invasion. In...
Reviews
“Petrenko’s reading with the HK Phil was a doozy, and one for the books. His long, fluid arm and hand movements – reminiscent of the poise and panache of the great Carlos Kleiber – coaxed the most graceful of musical arcs, creating endless space for the strings to surge passionately, which they did […] But ultimately it was Petrenko’s innate ability to maintain continual musical tension in a thoughtful, purposeful and unflashy manner that impressed deeply.”
“Petrenko stamped his authority all over the work: a fine sense of lyrical line matched the clarity of structure, but most deeply engaging was his control of the changing mood and temperature. Manic, ecstatic, passionate, tender, urgent: Petrenko brought a core integrity and logic to Mahler’s outpouring of music.”
“Other Russian conductors have given us valuable perspectives on Elgar: Yevgeny Svetlanov and Gennady Rozhdestvensky in particular. But this is more than that. [A] sense of the long, fluid, intensely (but never exaggeratedly) expressive line, […] rich in mood and character, strong in overall conception… […] The lasting impression is of a conductor with an intelligent, informed but deep love of this music.”
More Reviews
“To judge by the fire and precision that Petrenko brought to the Ninth Symphony, this was a season-starting cycle to treasure. Petrenko may appear a coolly restrained presence on the podium, but his orchestra played throughout with a fierce concentration that spoke of total rapport.”
The Guardian
“Petrenko stamped his authority all over the work: a fine sense of lyrical line matched the clarity of structure, but most deeply engaging was his control of the changing mood and temperature. Manic, ecstatic, passionate, tender, urgent: Petrenko brought a core integrity and logic to Mahler’s outpouring of music.”
Rian Evans, The Guardian
“Other Russian conductors have given us valuable perspectives on Elgar: Yevgeny Svetlanov and Gennady Rozhdestvensky in particular. But this is more than that. [A] sense of the long, fluid, intensely (but never exaggeratedly) expressive line, […] rich in mood and character, strong in overall conception… […] The lasting impression is of a conductor with an intelligent, informed but deep love of this music.”
BBC Music Magazine
““Petrenko drew the most scorching playing from the LPO, […] handled the score’s sprawling structure supremely convincingly, effecting the sudden shifts from the grandiose to fairground high jinks to crushing violence seamlessly. [He] ramped up the tension for the long finale, again handling the vast stretches of brass bombast very well [and] balanced the comic and the vicious in Shostakovich’s sudden shifts before the symphony concluded with its spectral celesta chiming over decaying harp and strings. It was one of those priceless moments where you can sense an entire hall holding its breath. […] a shattering performance.””
Mark Pullinger, Bachtrack
“Guest conductor Vasily Petrenko and pianist Paul Lewis […] make a superlative team, well matched in terms of vigor, sensibility and a serious dedication to the highest standards of musicianship. Without indulging in eccentricity or grandstanding, pianist and conductor managed to make a fresh experience of the well-worn score [Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto]. […] The strong musical and personal rapport Petrenko appears to enjoy with the orchestra musicians inspired a performance of Rachmaninov’s [Symphonic Dances] that was rich in color, brilliance and idiomatic feeling.[…] it all felt convincing. The CSO came through with an ardor and precision to match Petrenko’s own.”
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
“No previous recording of the 14th Symphony lays greater claim to beauty. Five stars, no question. – Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 Recording / Royal Liverpool Philharmonic / Naxos”
Norman Lebrecht, Sinfini Music
“The miracle of this performance is the thoughtfulness and sense of inner repose that Petrenko hears in the quieter music [of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7], […] The young maestro wields magisterial control over the overarching shape of this once despised, now rehabilitated and thrillingly dramatic symphony, with sensational results. Petrenko presides over a golden age of music-making in Liverpool. “
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times
“Petrenko has re-thought the symphony from the ground up; and there is not a second-hand thought in his concept and realisation. The precise word for this flawless and seamlessly sustained interpretation is "epic": in its tempos (unhurried) and particularly in its depth and extremely long-range view. It is both gripping and shattering, mellifluous and volcanic, unfolding like a landscape of the soul. “
Michael Tumelty, Herald Scotland | New RLPO Naxos Recording of Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7
“[Petrenko] inspired the orchestra to go well beyond its normal megawatt virtuosity, and this made for a blistering account of the Shostakovich. […] He built the brooding melancholy of the first movement slowly and purposefully, scaling each climax so it registered even more intensely than the one before. […] Seldom has the trajectory to the hollow triumph of the final pages been more exactingly plotted, or more excitingly conveyed. The orchestra gave Petrenko everything he asked for, and more. “
John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune
“[This] was a remarkable account of a great British symphony – Elgar’s First. We know how gifted Vasily Petrenko is from his sterling work in Liverpool but I could not have predicted how sensitively and instinctively he would embrace the character of this tremendous work, how excitingly he would grasp the sweep and volatility of it. For want of a more elegant phrase, Petrenko knew precisely how the music went. And that’s something you don’t learn but feel. […] Undoubtedly one of the great symphonic performances of 2012.”
Edward Seckerson
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