Valery Gergiev

Valery Gergiev earned his degree in Symphonic Conducting under Professor Ilya Musin at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Gergiev won a Herbert von Karajan conducting competition in Berlin at age 23, and was offered a job with Kirov Opera & Ballet while still a Conservatory student.

Valery Gergiev was appointed Artistic Director of the Mariinsky Opera Company at age 35. He has served as Artistic Director and Manager of the Mariinsky Theater since 1996.

For years, the Maestro has remained true to his mission: to make the Mariinsky the best opera and ballet company in the world. The theater’s repertoire has really «exploded» in the past 15 years. One of the highlights was the return to the St. Petersburg stage of Wagner’s great operas, Lohengrin, Parsifal, The Flying Dutchman and Tristan und Isolde. Credit for the staging of Russia’s only full version of Wagner’s four-part music drama Der Ring des Nibelungen also goes to the Mariinsky and its director. The European premiere of The Ring in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 2004 was hailed by the German media as a milestone in the history of music. The Ring was then performed with great success in Moscow in June 2005 before traveling to South Korea and Japan. The drama was presented in the US, UK and Spain in the 2006/2007 season.

Valery Gergiev has founded and directed numerous international music festivals, including the Mikkeli Fest in Finland, Red Sea Fest in Eilat, Israel, the Rotterdam Philharmonic-Gergiev Fest (Holland), and the Moscow Easter Festival.

Performances conducted by Valery Gergiev form the centerpiece of St. Petersburg’s annual Stars of the White Nights music festival, founded by Gergiev in 1993.

In the season of 2004-2005, Valery Gergiev was the inspiration behind Beslan. Music in the Name of Life world series of benefit concerts staged in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Rome and Moscow.

The Mariinsky’s creative partnerships with the world’s foremost opera houses was also Gergiev’s idea. The Mariinsky is now partners with Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Covent Garden Opera House, Carlo Felice Theater, San-Francisco Opera, La Scala, New Israel Opera and Chatle Theater.

Valery Gergiev has been acclaimed as one of the preeminent music conductors in the world. He works with some of the premier international musicians.

Valery Gergiev has served as the chief guest conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra since 1995, and was the chief guest conductor of New York’s Metropolitan Opera from 1997 to 2002. He was appointed head conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra on 1 January 2007.

Valery Gergiev’s talent and achievements have been celebrated with numerous awards, decorations and titles. He was honored with the title of People’s Artist of Russia in 1996, and won the Russian National Prize in 1994 and 1999. The jury of International Classical Music Awards voted Gergiev Conductor of the Year in 1994. He was a repeat winner of the Russian national Golden Mask theater awards as Conductor of the Year from 1996 to 2000. In 1998, Philips Electronics rewarded Gergiev with a special cash prize for outstanding contribution to music, which he donated to the Mariinsky’s Young Vocalists’ Academy. Valery Gergiev is also a winner of several national awards: Germany’s Merit Cross First Class, Italy’s Grand Ufficiale and France’s L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He was awarded the Russian Presidential Prize for Outstanding Contribution to the Advancement of the Arts in 2002, and the title of UNESCO World Artist in March 2003.

Valery Gergiev was awarded the Order for Service to the Homeland 3rd Class in 2003. The Russian Orthodox Church awarded him the Order of the Holy Virtuous Prince Daniil of Moscow, 3rd Class, for his contribution to the humanitarian and cultural projects of the Russian Orthodox Church the same year. Valery Gergiev was awarded a 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg commemorative medal in 2003. In 2004, Valery Gergiev received a Crystal Prize from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and was nominated People’s Artist of Ukraine in April of the same year. The government of Kyrgyzstan conferred the Danaker Order on Gergiev the same year. Beatrix the Queen of the Netherlands made Gergiev a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 2005. He won the Polar Music Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music the same year. In 2006, Valery Gergiev won the Japanese Record Academy Award for recording all of Prokofiev’s symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra.

In 2006, the Maestro won the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize at the Baden-Baden Music Festival and a prize from the Russian-American Cultural Cooperation Foundation for his contribution to promoting cultural ties between Russia and the US. In November 2006, the Emperor of Japan decorated Valery Gergiev with one of the highest national awards of Japan: the Order of the Rising Sun. France gave Valery Gergiev its top award — the Order of the Legion of Honor — in April 2007. In May of the same year, Gergiev was awarded the Academie du disque lyrique prize for his recording of Russian operas, and was made an Honorary

Citizen of St. Petersburg.

In 2008, Maestro Gergiev was awarded the Order for Service to the Homeland 4th Class and made People’s Artist of the Republic of South Ossetia. In May 2008, Gergiev received a Johan van Oldenbarnevelt medal for his contribution to the cultural life of Rotterdam. In December of the same year, he was awarded the Andrew the First-Called Prize for «Unique Creative Temperament, Revolutionary Contribution to the Rejuvenation of the Mariinsky Theater, and Versatile Achievement in Preserving and Advancing Russian Music.»

Most recently, Valery Gergiev was decorated with the Palau de la Musica medal from Valencia, Spain.