Kirill Petrenko

Kirill Petrenko has served as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berliner Philharmoniker since August 2019. Born in 1972 in Omsk, Siberia, he moved with his family to the Austrian state of Vorarlberg at the age of 18. He studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, leading to his first professional engagement in 1997 at the Vienna Volksoper. He went on to serve as General Music Director at the Meininger Theater (1999–2002), the Komische Oper Berlin (2002–07), and the Bavarian Staatsoper (2013–20). As a guest conductor, credits include at the Vienna Staatsoper, the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Opéra national de Paris, and the Bayreuth Festival. He has also led major symphony orchestras in Vienna, Munich, Dresden, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Rome, Chicago, Cleveland, and Israel. With the Berliner Philharmoniker, Petrenko focuses intensively on the core Classical and Romantic repertoire while at the same time championing unjustly neglected works by such composers as Josef Suk and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. In the 2025-26 season, which will focus on the theme “Controversy!”, he will perform Mahler’s Eighth and Scriabin’s Third Symphonies, Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin, and Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Pulcinella, among other works. Petrenko is committed to the training of young musicians, regularly conducting concerts at the Karajan Academy and participating in educational projects. At the Easter Festival, which is returning to its original venue in Salzburg after 12 years in Baden-Baden, he conducts concerts and opera productions alike, including Wagner’s Das Rheingold in 2026. On tour with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Petrenko regularly appears at the Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals and in Europe’s music capitals. A major tour of Asia is planned for fall of 2025, with stops in South Korea, Taiwan, Shanghai, and Tokyo. In addition to works by John Adams and Gustav Mahler, Petrenko has recorded symphonies by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich.

Lucerne Festival debut on 7 September 2016 in a Wagner-Strauss program with the Bavarian Staatsorchester.

Mai 2025