Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko

Biography

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s (RPO) mission to enrich lives through orchestral experiences that are uncompromising in their excellence and inclusive in their appeal, places it at the forefront of music-making in the UK and internationally. Typically performing approximately 200 concerts a year and with a worldwide live and online audience of more than 60 million people, the Orchestra is proud to embrace a broad repertoire and reach a diverse audience. Whilst artistic integrity remains paramount, the RPO is unafraid to push boundaries and is equally at home recording video game, film and television soundtracks and working with pop stars, as it is touring the world performing the great symphonic repertoire.
Throughout its history, the RPO has attracted and collaborated with the most inspiring artists and in August 2021, the Orchestra was thrilled to welcome Vasily Petrenko as its new Music Director. A landmark appointment in the RPO’s history, Vasily’s first three seasons with the RPO have been lauded by audiences and critics alike. Highlights included a star-studded gala concert to mark the RPO’s 75th Anniversary (with soloists Sheku Kanneh-Mason MBE and Sir Bryn Terfel), all three of Mahler’s epic Choral Symphonies at the Royal Albert Hall, music by Elgar and Rachmaninov at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, performances at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh International Festival, and major tours to the USA, Japan, Germany, Spain and a host of prestigious European festivals.
The RPO is recognised as the UK’s most in-demand orchestra, an accolade that would have pleased Sir Thomas Beecham, who founded the Orchestra in 1946. As well as a busy schedule of national and international performances, the Orchestra enjoys an annual season of concerts in London’s Royal Albert Hall (where the RPO is Associate Orchestra), the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and Cadogan Hall, where it is celebrating its 20th Season as Resident Orchestra. In the 2024–25 Season, Vasily Petrenko and the Orchestra delved deep into the works of composers who overcame great challenges to produce some of their finest music in Lights in the Dark. Celebrating music’s power to unite and inspire, the series includes orchestral masterpieces such as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony and Strauss’ An Alpine Symphony. The Season has also featured relaxed performances, residencies in venues across the country, a major tour to Germany and Austria, performances in other parts of Europe, and collaborations with artists including Principal Associate Conductor Alexander Shelley, Composer-in-Association Joe Hisaishi, Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Paul Lewis, Yunchan Lim, Eric Lu, Liya Petrova, Maxim Vengerov, Roderick Williams OBE, Esther Yoo and Artist-in-Residence Johan Dalene, amongst others.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s mission is to place orchestral music at the heart of contemporary society and, through collaboration with creative partners, foster deeper engagement with communities to ensure that live orchestral music is accessible to as inclusive and diverse an audience as possible. To help achieve this goal, in 1993 the Orchestra launched RPO Resound, which has grown to become the most innovative and respected orchestral community and education programme in the UK and internationally. In 2025, the Orchestra moves its headquarters to Wembley Park in the London Borough of Brent; this will be the realisation of its long-held ambition to embed the Orchestra in a community, in line with its mission to be a truly inclusive and contemporary international orchestra for the modern age.
The Orchestra has always been entrepreneurial; in 1986 it was the first UK orchestra to launch its own record label and it has gone on to embrace advances in digital technology, achieving well over 50 million streams of its recorded music each year. The RPO’s global online audience engages with it through the website and social media channels, where the Orchestra shares streamed performances, artist interviews, ‘behind-the-scenes’ insights and more.
The Elgar (Falstaff) and Rachmaninov (Les Cloches) disc conducted by Vasily Petrenko marks their first collaboration with harmonia mundi.

Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2021). He is Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, following his hugely acclaimed fifteen-year tenure as their Chief Conductor from 2006–2021. He is Chief Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (since 2015), Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and has also served as Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013–2020) and Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2009–2013). He stood down as Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ in 2022 having been their Principal Guest Conductor from 2016 and Artistic Director from 2020.
Vasily was born in 1976 and started his music education at the Leningrad Capella Boys Music School – Russia’s oldest music school. He then studied at the Leningrad Conservatoire where he participated in masterclasses with such luminary figures as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov.
He has worked with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Orchestra dell' Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony orchestras, and in North America has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Montreal Symphony orchestras. Equally at home in the opera house, and with over thirty operas in his repertoire, Vasily has conducted widely on the operatic stage, including at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zürich, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Bavarian State Opera and Metropolitan Opera, New York.
Recent highlights as Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have included wide-ranging touring across major European capitals, China, Japan and the USA, including an acclaimed performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall. In London, he has led an impressive survey of Mahler’s choral symphonies at the Royal Albert Hall, explored the music of Elgar and Rachmaninov at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and performed with Denis Kozhukhin at the 2024 BBC Proms. In their 2024–25 London Season, Vasily and the Orchestra celebrated music’s power to unite and inspire with Lights in the Dark, a series featuring masterpieces by Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Price, Weill, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Strauss.
Vasily has established a strongly defined profile as a recording artist. Amongst a wide discography, his Shostakovich, Rachmaninov and Elgar symphony cycles with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have garnered worldwide acclaim. With the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, he has released cycles of Scriabin’s symphonies and Strauss’ tone poems, and works by Prokofiev and Myaskovsky.
In September 2017, Vasily was honoured with the Artist of the Year Award at the prestigious annual Gramophone Awards, one decade on from receiving their Young Artist of the Year Award in October 2007. In 2010, he won the Male Artist of the Year at the Classical BRIT Awards and is only the second person to have been awarded Honorary Doctorates by both the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Hope University (in 2009), and an Honorary Fellowship of the Liverpool John Moores University (in 2012), awards which recognise the immense impact he has had on the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the city’s cultural scene.
His recording of Elgar (Falstaff) and Rachmaninov (The Bells) with the RPO marks his first collaboration with harmonia mundi.