Vasily Petrenko

Born in 1976 in what was then Leningrad — now St. Petersburg — Vasily Petrenko began his musical education at the age of seven. He later studied conducting at the conservatory in his hometown, where his teachers included Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons, and Yuri Temirkanov. He became resident conductor at the Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg at the age of 18. In 2006, Petrenko was appointed Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, which he led for 15 years and with which he is still associated as Honorary Conductor. He was Music Director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra from 2013 to 2020 and of the European Union Youth Orchestra from 2015 to 2024. In 2021, he began his tenure helming the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, where he has since extended his contract until 2030. He performs with this orchestra in London, throughout the UK, and in other European music capitals as well as in the USA and Japan. Alongside the other major London orchestras, Petrenko has conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestre National de France, and the Czech Philharmonic. He has appeared with the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and San Francisco Symphony, as well as the Chicago and Boston Symphony Orchestras. As an opera conductor with more than 30 works in his repertoire, he has performed at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Opéra national de Paris, Bavarian Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Zurich Opera. His most recent engagement was for a production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at Dutch National Opera in June 2025. His discography includes symphony cycles by Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff, and Elgar. Petrenko was voted Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards in 2017. He is an honorary citizen of Liverpool and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool. 

April 2025