Valery Gergiev, Conductor / The Mariinsky Orchestra

“Gergiev carries a disproportionately large portion of the contemporary music world on his shoulders. Under his command, the Mariinsky Theatre has emerged as one of the world’s most respected (and recorded) opera companies.”
The New Yorker (1998)

“As the star conductor he undoubtedly is, Gergiev is one of those conjurors of sounds who can draw the audience to them in such a way that it feels the earth move.”
Bцblinger Bote (2000)

“We all admire Valery Gergiev for his truly inspirational performances which, together with his unbelievable energy, passion for the music and wonderful amicable qualities have taken him to great heights of performing in the world of music.”
The Guardian (2005)

has turned the Mariinsky Theatre with its centuries-old traditions into the world’s most dynamic opera and ballet company, nurturing an endless stream of brilliant singers and dancers. The maestro fully deserves his rating by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world today.
The Times (2010)

Valery Gergiev graduated from the Leningrad State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in symphony conducting under Professor Ilya Musin. At the age of twenty-three he won the Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in Berlin and, while still a student at the Conservatoire, was invited to join the Kirov Theatre (now the Mariinsky). At the age of thirty-five, Valery Gergiev was appointed Artistic Director of the Opera Company, and since 1996 he has been Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre.
At the Mariinsky Theatre Gergiev has overseen the emergence of a plethora of world-class singers. Under his direction, the theatre’s opera and ballet repertoire has expanded significantly. Today it encompasses a broad range of works from 18th to 20th century classical masterpieces to works by contemporary composers.
Highlights include performances of every opera by Prokofiev and Shostakovich at the Mariinsky Theatre, as well as the return of Wagner’s operas Lohengrin, Parsifal, Der Fliegende Hollдnder and Tristan und Isolde to the St Petersburg stage. For the first time in the history of Russian theatre, Gergiev staged a production of Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen in the original German (2003), the Western European premiere of which in Baden-Baden (2004) was feted by the German media as a truly historic event in world music. In June 2005 Der Ring des Nibelungen was performed to great acclaim in Moscow, and later in South Korea and Japan. In the 2006 ? 2007 season, Wagner’s tetralogy was performed in the USA, Great Britain and Spain. In 2009 Gergiev oversaw an international production of Berlioz’ operatic duologue Les Troyens, which resulted in a series of concert performances of this work by the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Chorus and soloists in Russia, Israel and the USA.

Gergiev has established and directs such international festivals as the Gergiev Festival (the Netherlands), the Moscow Easter Festival and the Stars of the White Nights festival (St Petersburg), which Austria’s respected Festspiele Magazin listed as one of the world’s ten greatest festivals.

Thanks to Valery Gergiev’s efforts, the Concert Hall was built in 2006, which has significantly broadened the repertoire possibilities of the company and the orchestra. This stunning theatre and concert complex is remarkable for its outstanding acoustics. At the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre there are not only performances of operas and philharmonic programmes, but also recordings of works for the Mariinsky label, established on the initiative of Valery Gergiev in 2009. The Mariinsky label has already released sixteen discs that have received great public and critical acclaim. In 2010 a recording of the opera The Nose – the label’s first project – received a MIDEM Classical Award.

The maestro devotes much attention to programmes for children and young people and he has revived the practice of offering subscriptions for this audience group as well as gratis concerts for students.

Valery Gergiev is also well-known for his active role in the protection of humanistic ideals. The maestro initiated the worldwide series of charitable concerts Beslan: Music for Life that were held in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Rome and Moscow. In August 2008 the maestro conducted a requiem concert in front of the ruined Government House of South Ossetia in Tskhinval.

Since 2007 Valery Gergiev has been Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and he also collaborates with the Metropolitan Opera, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the orchestra of La Scala and the New York and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras. He is a member of the Council for Culture and Art of the President of the Russian Federation and headed the Organisational Committee of the XIV International Tchaikovsky Competition.

In February 2010 the Academic Council of the St Petersburg State University elected Valery Gergiev Dean of the Faculty of Arts.

For his services to music and to society, Valery Gergiev has been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes. These include the title of People’s Artist of Russia (1996), the State Prize of Russia (1994 and 1999), Government awards of Germany (Bundestverdienstkreuz, first class, “For Services”), Italy (Grand’ufficiale dell’Ordine al merito), France (L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), the Netherlands (Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion), Japan (Order of the Rising Sun), Poland (Gloria Artis Gold Medal), the honorary title UNESCO Artist of the World and the Polar Music Prize of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music. In December 2008 the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev was included in a list of the world’s top twenty ensembles published by Gramophone magazine. Of the three Russian orchestras included in the list, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra was ranked highest. In 2009 Great Britain’s Royal Philharmonic Society named Valery Gergiev “Conductor of the Year”. One of the maestro’s most recent awards was Europe’s Glashüte Original Music Festival Prize (2010) which he received for his support of talented young musicians. In 2011 Valery Gergiev was made Honorary President of the Edinburgh International Festival. In November 2011 respected French magazine Classica named him “Artist of the Year.”

Born in Boa Esperança, Brazil, Nelson Freire began piano lessons at the age of three with Nise Obino and Lucia Branco, who had worked with a pupil of Liszt. He made his first public appearance at the age of five playing Mozart’s Sonata K. 331. In 1957, after winning a grant at the Rio de Janeiro International Piano Competition with Beethoven’s “Emperor”Concerto, he went to Vienna to study with Bruno Seidlhofer, teacher of Friedrich Gulda. Seven years later he won the Dinu Lipatti Medal in London and first prize at the International Vianna da Motta Competition in Lisbon.
Since his international career began in 1959, Freire has appeared at virtually every important musical centre, in recital and collaborating with such distinguished conductors as Jirí Belohlávek, Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Iván Fischer, Valery Gergiev, Alan Gilbert, Eugen Jochum, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Ingo Metzmacher, Kent Nagano, Václav Neumann, Seiji Ozawa, David Robertson, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas, Hugh Wolff, David Zinman and orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester of Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Oslo Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Mariinsky, Tonhalle of Zurich, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Vienna Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, London Symphony, BBC Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, São Paulo Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic, as well as the leading North American orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington. With Martha Argerich, he toured Japan in 2003, Brazil and Argentina in 2004 and the USA and Canada in 2005.

Freire has an extensive discography and was included by Philips in its historic series Great Pianists of the 20th Century, released in 1999. He has been an exclusive Decca artist since 2001, thus far recording Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Debussy, as well as the two Brahms Concertos with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly, which was hailed by Gramophone as “the Brahms piano concerto set we’ve been waiting for” and has earned international prizes including the 2007 Classic FM Gramophone Award as “Record of the Year” and “Winner of the Concerto Category”, Diapason d’or, Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros and Choc du Monde de la musique as well as a Grammy® nomination. The Chopin bicentenary year of 2010 saw two new releases by Freire: his recording of the complete Nocturnes and a recital album containing the Second Sonata, Op. 10 Etudes and Barcarolle. In the Liszt bicentenary year of 2011 Decca released his recital album Harmonies du Soir. His new album Brasileiro is planned for release in summer 2012.

In March 2007, Nelson Freire was appointed a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres by the French government and in January 2011 he was made a Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion de’Honneur, the French government’s highest award to a foreigner.