Valery Gergiev, who was born in 1953 in Moscow and grew up in the Caucasus, studied at the Leningrad Conservatory with Ilja Musin and launched his career in 1977 as winner of the Herbert von Karajan Conductors’ Competition in Berlin. One year later he began his partnership with Kirov Opera, now known as the Mariinsky Theater St. Petersburg, making his debut with Prokofiev’s War and Peace. In 1988 Gergiev was named Artistic Director and, in 1996, General Director; this position also includes leadership of the White Nights Festivals. Among the places where he has led the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra and Ensemble on tour are Japan, China, Israel, the United States, and all of the leading music centers in Europe. In 1994 Gergiev made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he served as Principal Guest Conductor from 1997 to 2008. During that time he was also Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. In January 2007 he was appointed to the same position with the London Symphony Orchestra, with which he will perform a Brahms-Szymanowski cycle in the 2012-13 season. Gergiev has additionally conducted the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco Symphonies; the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; the Berlin, Vienna, and Munich Philharmonics; and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Since 2011 he has been Chairman of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, where he has had a prominently reformist role. Gergiev has been honored with many awards, including the Shostakovich Prize and the title People’s Artist of Russia—the two most important tributes of his native country; in 2006 he received the Polar Music Prize and the Karajan Prize. His recording of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet with the London Symphony Orchestra won the BBC Music Magazine Award in 2011.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 20 August 1999 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, in works by Kancheli and Beethoven.
May 2012