Vasily Petrenko conducts Britten, Ravel & Rimski-Korsakow

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 highlights have included wide-ranging touring with the Royal Philharmonic, across major European capitals, Japan, and the US, including an acclaimed performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall. In London he led a survey of Mahler’s choral symphonies at the Royal Albert Hall. He made his debut appearance with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and returned to the Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and a revival of Boris Godunov with the Bavarian State Opera as part of the Munich Opera Festival. In 23/24 he returned to tour the US and Europe with the Royal Philharmonic, made his debut with the NDR-Elphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg and returned to the Seoul, Hong Kong, Israel and Dresden Philharmonics, the Pittsburgh and Dallas Symphonies, the Filarmonica della Scala, Milan, and the orchestra of the Palau de Les Arts, Valencia.

Vasily Petrenko has established a strongly defined profile as a recording artist. Amongst a wide discography, his Shostakovich, Rachmaninov and Elgar symphony cycles with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have garnered worldwide acclaim. With the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, he has released cycles of Scriabin’s symphonies and Strauss’ tone poems, and selected symphonies of Prokofiev and Myaskovsky.

In September 2017, Vasily Petrenko was honoured with the Artist of the Year award at the prestigious annual Gramophone Awards, one decade on from receiving their Young Artist of the Year award in October 2007. In 2010, he won the Male Artist of the Year at the Classical BRIT Awards and is only the second person to have been awarded Honorary Doctorates by both the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Hope University (in 2009), and an Honorary Fellowship of the Liverpool John Moores University (in 2012), awards which recognise the immense impact he has had on the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the city’s cultural scene.

Véronique Gens is one of France’s best loved sopranos, enjoying a distinguished career in opera, concert, recitals and recordings: she is recognised as one of the finest interpreters of Mozart and the French repertory.

Véronqiue’s recent and upcoming operatic appearances include: Madame Lidoine Dialogues des Carmélites at the Bayerische Staatsoper and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the title role of La Fille de Madame Angot at the Opéra Comique, Giulietta Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the La Fenice, Clitemestre Iphigénie en Aulide at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and for the Greek National Opera, the title role of Charpentier’s Médée with Les Arts Florissants at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

One of the flagship roles of her career, Donna Elvira in the production of Don Giovanni by Peter Brook conducted by Claudio Abbado at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, brought her worldwide recognition. Her repertory comprises the leading Mozart roles (Contessa Almaviva, Vitellia, Fiordiligi) and the great roles of tragédie lyrique (including Iphigénie en Tauride, Iphigénie en Aulide and Alceste) but also heroines of a later period including: Alice Ford Falstaff; Eva Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; Madame Lidoine Dialogues des Carmélites and Hanna Glawari Die Lustige Witwe. Véronique Gens also gives numerous concerts and recitals in a wide-ranging repertory all over the world, notably in Paris, Dresden, Berlin, Beijing, Vienna, Prague, London, Tanglewood, Stockholm, Moscow, Geneva and Edinburgh.

She has performed on the world’s foremost operatic stages, among them the Opéra National de Paris, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Bayerische Staatsoper, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro Real in Madrid, Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and the Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg and Glyndebourne festivals.

In 1999, she was voted Vocal Artist of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique Classique. Her many recordings (more than eighty CDs and DVDs) have received several international prizes: most recently, her album of French mélodies, Néère won a Gramophone Award in 2016, while Visions obtained an International Classical Music Award and an International Opera Award in 2018. Also La Reyne de Chypre by Halévy obtained a Gramophone Award in 2019, in the Opera category – she also named “Artist of the Year” by Gramophone in 2023 and received the Ehrenpreis 2023 from the Schallplattenkritik.

Véronique Gens has been promoted to the rank of Chevalier in the French order of La Légion d’Honneur as well as Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres and Officier de l’Ordre national du Mérite.