Valery Gergiev

Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (Валерий Абисалович Гергиев, ; Гергиты Абисалы фырт Валери; born 2 May 1953) is a Russian conductor and opera company director.

He is currently general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre and of the Bolshoi Theatre and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.

He was formerly chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and of the Munich Philharmonic.

Gergiev was born in Moscow.

He is the son of Tamara Timofeevna (Tatarkanovna) Lagkueva and Abisal Zaurbekovich Gergiev, both of Ossetian origin.

He and his siblings were raised in Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia in the Caucasus.

He had his first piano lessons in secondary school before going on to study at the Leningrad Conservatory from 1972 to 1977.

His principal conducting teacher was Ilya Musin.

His sister, Larissa, is a pianist and director of the Mariinsky's singers' academy.

In 1978, Gergiev became assistant conductor at the Kirov Opera, now the Mariinsky Opera, under Yuri Temirkanov, where he made his debut conducting Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace.

He was chief conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra from 1981 until 1985.

In 1985, Gergiev made his debut in the United Kingdom, along with pianist Evgeny Kissin and violinists Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin at the Lichfield Festival.

He became chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky in 1988, and overall director of the company, appointed by the Russian government, in 1996.

In 1988, Gergiev guest-conducted the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) for the first time.

In 1991, Gergiev conducted a western European opera company for the first time, leading the Bavarian State Opera in a performance of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in Munich.

In the same year, he made his American début, performing War and Peace with the San Francisco Opera.

After the 2004 Beslan school massacre, Gergiev appealed on television for calm and against revenge.

He conducted concerts to commemorate the victims of the massacre.

Gergiev returned to the LSO in 2004, in concerts with the seven symphonies of Sergei Prokofiev.

This engagement led to his appointment in 2005 as the Orchestra's fifteenth principal conductor, as of 1 January 2007, with an initial contract of 3 years.

In April 2007, Gergiev was one of eight conductors of British orchestras to endorse the ten-year classical music outreach manifesto, "Building on Excellence: Orchestras for the 21st century", to increase the presence of classical music in the UK, including giving free entry to all British schoolchildren to a classical music concert.

During the 2008 South Ossetia war, Gergiev, who is of partial Ossetian heritage himself, accused the Georgian government of massacring ethnic Ossetians, triggering the conflict with Russia.

He came to Tskhinvali and conducted a concert near the ruined building of the South Ossetian Parliament as tribute to the victims of the war.

In June 2011, Gergiev joined the International Tchaikovsky Competition and introduced reforms to the organisation.

In 2012, in a television ad for Putin's third Presidential campaign, he said: "One needs to be able to hold oneself presidentially, so that people reckon with the country. I don't know if it's fear? Respect? Reckoning."

In December 2012, Gergiev sided with the Putin administration against the members of Russian band Pussy Riot and suggested that their motivation was commercial.

In New York City in 2013, the LGBT activist group Queer Nation interrupted performances by orchestras conducted by Gergiev at the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall.

The activists cited Gergiev's support for Vladimir Putin, whose government had recently enacted a law that bans the distribution of "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" to minors, as the reason for their actions.

In London, the veteran activist Peter Tatchell led anti-Gergiev demonstrations.

In a public statement Gergiev replied: "It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation and in all my work I have upheld equal rights for all people. I am an artist and have for over three decades worked with tens of thousands of people and many of them are indeed my friends."

Writing in The Guardian, Mark Brown wrote: "Gergiev's case was not helped by comments he made to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant on 10 September [2013]: 'In Russia we do everything we can to protect children from paedophiles. This law is not about homosexuality, it targets paedophilia. But I have too busy a schedule to explore this matter in detail. On 26 December 2013, the city of Munich made public a letter from Gergiev assuring them that he fully supports the city's anti-discrimination law and adding: "In my entire professional career as an artist, I have always and everywhere adhered to these principles and will do so in the future... All other allegations hurt me very much."

In March 2014 he joined a host of other Russian arts and cultural figures in signing an open letter in support of the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.

The letter was posted on the website of Russia's culture ministry on 12 March 2014.

In the letter signatories stated that they "firmly declare our support for the position of the president of the Russian Federation" in the region.

Gergiev stood down as LSO principal conductor in 2015.

In 2015, Gergiev became chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, In March 2022, Gergiev was dismissed from Munich Philharmonic after he refused to condemn the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Gergiev has been, according to Alex Ross in The New Yorker, "a prominent supporter of the current Russian regime" of Vladimir Putin.

On 5 May 2016, Gergiev performed at the Roman Theatre of Palmyra at a concert event called Praying for Palmyra – Music revives ancient ruins, devoted to casualties of the March 2016 Palmyra offensive.

In December 2023, Gergiev was appointed artistic director of the Bolshoi Theatre, with immediate effect, with an initial contract of 5 years.

Gergiev is the first person to hold the directorships of the Mariinsky Theatre and the Bolshoi Theatre simultaneously.