Valery Gergiev

Valery Gergiev is a well-regarded Russian conductor of classical music and opera who has led many of the world's great orchestras and recorded albums of mostly Russian composers with 17 Grammy Award nominations to his name. He was named principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 2005 and chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic in 2015. His 2017 album 'Rimsky-Korsakov: The Golden Cockerel' was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best Opera Recording in the 2018 awards.

Born in Moscow, he studied music at the Leningrad Conservatory. He became assistant conductor at the Kirov Opera in 1978 and was named chief conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981. He made his UK debut in 1985 at the Lichfield Festival. He went on to become chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1988, principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic in 1995 and principal guest conductor of the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1997.

His best-selling album is 'Liszt: My Piano Hero' (2011) with Lang Lang and the Vienna Philharmonic, which went to number five on the Billboard Classical Albums Chart. 'Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2' (2005) with Lang Lang and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra reached number eleven and 'Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (Complete)' (1998) with the Kirov Orchestra peaked at number 19. A performance of 'The Nutcracker' with Gergiev conducting the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra was released on Blu-ray in 2008. The first performances in 2018 by the Munich Philharmonic under Gergiev were scheduled for January in Munich with a series of concerts at venues in Paris, Cologne, Amsterdam and Hamburg.