Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he took on in 2021, becoming 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), the 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 2021 having been their Principal Guest Conductor from 2016 and Artistic Director from 2020.

Born in 1976, Petrenko was educated at the St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – Russia’s oldest music school – and the St Petersburg Conservatoire where he participated in masterclasses with such luminary figures as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov. He began his career as Resident Conductor (1994–1997) of St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre. 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, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, NHK Symphony and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, and in North America has lead the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Montreal Symphony Orchestras. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and made frequent appearances at the BBC Proms. Equally at home in the opera house, and with over thirty operas in his repertoire, Vasily Petrenko has conducted widely on the operatic stage, including at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zürich, the Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

Recent highlights have included wide-ranging touring with the Royal Philharmonic, across major European capitals, Japan, and the US, including an acclaimed performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall. In London he led a survey of Mahler’s choral symphonies at the Royal Albert Hall. He made his debut appearance with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and returned to the Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and a revival of Boris Godunov with the Bavarian State Opera as part of the Munich Opera Festival. In 23/24 he returns to tour the US and Europe with the Royal Philharmonic, makes his debut with the NDR-Elphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg and returns to the Seoul, Hong Kong, Israel and Dresden Philharmonics, the Pittsburgh and Dallas Symphonies, the Filarmonica della Scala, Milan, and the orchestra of the Palau de Les Arts, Valencia.

Vasily Petrenko 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 selected symphonies of Prokofiev and Myaskovsky.

In September 2017, Vasily Petrenko 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.

Daniel Lozakovich, whose majestic music-making leaves both critics and audiences spellbound, was born in Stockholm in 2001 and began playing the violin when approaching seven years of age. He made his solo debut two years later with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov. Lozakovich now regularly performs with such orchestras as the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Gulbenkian Orchestra and the Munchner Philharmoniker. He collaborates the world’s eminent conductors including Semyon Bychkov, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Neeme Järvi, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, Vasily Petrenko, Lahav Shani, Tugan Sokhiev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Nathalie Stutzmann, Krzysztof Urbanski and Lorenzo Viotti.

Recent highlights include Lozakovich’s return invitation to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in subscription with Nelsons, his New York debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival with Louis Langrée, debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra with Mäkelä and the LA Philharmonic with Salonen. Notable touring highlights include engagements in Japan and Asia with Valery Gergiev, and the hr-Sinfonieorchester under Andrés Orozco-Estrada. A remarkable 2020/21 season was scheduled to include engagements such as Lozakovich’s debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Oslo Philharmonic, Orquestra Nacional de Espana, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo.

A highly sought after recitalist, having performed in some of the world’s most prestigious venues, Lozakovich has made appearances at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Tonhalle Zürich, Victoria Hall Geneva, Conservatorio G. Verdi Milan and the Mariinsky Theatre. On tour he has appeared at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and this season, he returns to the Konzerthaus Wien. Lozakovich is regular at international music festivals, including the Verbier Festival, Sommets musicaux de Gstaad, Festival Rotterdam, White Nights Festival, Moscow Easter Festival, Tsinandali Festival, Festival de Pâques – Aix-en-Provence, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival, Blossom Music Festival and the Pacific Music Festival. Lozakovich enjoys collaborations with the likes of Ivry Gitlis, Emanuel Ax, Renaud Capuçon, Shlomo Mintz, Denis Matsuev, Khatia Buniatishvili, George Li, Seong-Jin Cho, Martin Fröst and Maxim Vengerov.

Aged 15, Lozakovich signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon, and in 2018 released his debut album of Bach’s violin concerti and the solo partita No. 2. The album reached number 1 in the music category of the French Amazon charts and the classical album charts in Germany. “None but the lonely heart”, Lozakovich’s second album, was released in 2019. Dedicated to Tchaikovsky, it includes the Violin Concerto, and the disc was recorded live with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and Spivakov. Lozakovich’s third album, released in 2020, centres on the Beethoven Violin concerto, again recorded live, with the Munchner Philharmoniker, together with Lozakovich’s close artist partner and the orchestra’s Chief Conductor, Valery Gergiev, and released as an audio album and e-video, in the 250th Beethoven anniversary year. An incredibly significant project to Lozakovich, who regards the concerto as one of the all-time greatest concerti ever written, the album reached the streaming release charts on Spotify and Tidal.

Lozakovich has been awarded many prizes including 1st prize at the 2016 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition and “The Young Artist of the Year 2017” award at the Festival of the Nations, the Premio Batuta Award in Mexico, and the Excelentia Prize under the honorary presidency of Queen Sofia of Spain. Lozakovich studied at the Karlsruhe University of Music with Professor Josef Rissin from 2012, and from 2015 has been mentored by Eduard Wulfson in Geneva. Daniel Lozakovich plays the “ex-Baron Rothschild” Stradivari on generous loan on behalf of the owner by Reuning & Son, Boston, and Eduard Wulfson and plays the Stradivarius Le Reynier (1727), generously loaned by LVMH / MOET HENNESSY. LOUIS VUITTON.