Vasily Petrenko & Siobhan Stagg

Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he assumed in 2021, and which ignited a partnership that has been praised by audiences and critics worldwide. The same year, he became Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra following his hugely acclaimed 15-year tenure as their Chief Conductor from 2006–2021. He is the Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and has also served as Chief Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (2015–2024), 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 2022, having been their Principal Guest Conductor from 2016 and Artistic Director from 2020.

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 and NHK Symphony orchestras, and in North America has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston and Chicago Symphony orchestras. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and BBC Proms. Equally at home in the opera house, and with over 30 operas in his repertoire, Vasily has conducted widely on the operatic stage, including at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zürich, Bayerische Staatsoper and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include tours with the Royal Philharmonic in Spain and the United States. He makes his debut with the Warsaw Philharmonic, and returns to conduct the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Dresden Philharmonic and the Houston Symphony, among others.

Recent highlights as Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have included wide-ranging touring across major European capitals and festivals, China, Japan and the USA. In London, recent acclaimed performances have included Mahler’s choral symphonies and concerts with Yunchan Lim and Maxim Vengerov at the Royal Albert Hall, performances at the BBC Proms, and the Icons Rediscovered and Lights in the Dark series. In the 2025–26 Season, at the Royal Albert Hall, they will perform three mighty Mahler’s symphonies alongside Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Korngold’s Violin Concerto. At the Royal Festival Hall, highlights include Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10, Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie, orchestral music from Wagner’s Parsifal and Scriabin’s Symphony No.3, ‘The Divine Poem’.

Soprano Siobhan Stagg is one of the most exceptional young artists to have emerged from Australia in recent years. After graduating from the University of Melbourne, Siobhan began her career in the Salzburger Festspiele’s Young Singers Project and as a soloist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

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Siobhan has sung the title role in Cendrillon for the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Pamina and Susanna for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden; Sophie Der Rosenkavalier for the Opernhaus Zurich; Susanna for Komische Oper Berlin; Mélisande for Opera de Dijon and Australia’s Victorian Opera (for which she received the Green Room Award for Best Female Lead in an Opera); Gilda, Blonde and Cordelia in Reimann’s Lear for the Hamburgische Staatsoper; Lady Magnesia and Najade Ariadne auf Naxos for the Bayerische Staatsoper; Blonde for the Dutch National Opera; staged performances of Mozart’s Requiem at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; Woglinde for the Deutsche Staatsoper and Morgana Alcina and Marzelline Fidelio for the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

​The 2024/25 sees Siobhan revisit important relationships with major orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, Müncher Rundfunkorchester, Tasmanian Symphony and Aalborg Symphony.  Other concert highlights include her debut with Toronto Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, Orquesta y Coro de Radio Televisión Española and Freiburger Barockorchester.
Upcoming opera engagements of the coming season include Idomeneo on tour with Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, Angelica Orlando in the new production at the Théatre du Châtelet Paris, a revival of Lady Magnesia at the Bayerische Staatsoper as well as her role debut of Despina Così fan tutte and a new opera Dark Side of the Moon by Unsuk Chin for the Hamburgische Staatsoper.

​Siobhan became a Director of the Melba Opera Trust Board in October 2020, their first scholarship alumna to be appointed, and the first International Director.