Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he assumed in 2021, and which ignited a partnership that has been praised by audiences and critics worldwide. The same year, he became Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra following his hugely acclaimed 15-year tenure as their Chief Conductor from 2006 to 2021. He is the Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and has also served as Chief Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (2015–2024), 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.
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 in Rome, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic and NHK Symphony Orchestras, and in North America he has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and BBC Proms. Equally at home in the opera house, and with over 30 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, Bayerische Staatsoper and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Highlights of the 2025/26 season include tours with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Spain and the United States. Vasily Petrenko makes his debut with the Warsaw Philharmonic, and returns to conduct the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Dresden Philharmonic and the Houston Symphony, among others.
Recent highlights as Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have included wide-ranging touring across major European capitals and festivals, China, Japan and the USA. In London, recent acclaimed performances have included Mahler’s choral symphonies and concerts with Yunchan Lim and Maxim Vengerov at the Royal Albert Hall, performances at the BBC Proms, and the "Icons Rediscovered" and "Lights in the Dark" series. In autumn 2025, they performed three mighty Mahler Symphonies alongside Bernstein’s "Chichester Psalms" and Korngold’s Violin Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall. At the Royal Festival Hall, highlights included Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, Messiaen’s "Turangalîla Symphony", orchestral music from Wagner’s "Parsifal" and Scriabin’s Symphony No. 3, "The Divine Poem".
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 an ongoing series of the symphonies of Prokofiev and Myaskovsky. In autumn 2025, he launched a new partnership between the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Harmonia Mundi label, with Elgar’s "Falstaff" and Rachmaninov’s "The Bells", to be followed by subsequent releases of Strauss, Bartók and Stravinsky.
Born in 1976, Vasily was educated at the St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – Russia's oldest music school – and the St Petersburg Conservatoire. He was Gramophone Artist of the Year (2017), Classical BRIT Male Artist of the Year (2010), and holds honorary degrees from Liverpool’s three universities. In 2024, Vasily also launched a new academy for young conductors, co-organised by the Primavera Foundation Armenia and the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra.