Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra of Russia,
Valery Platonov,
Boris Berezovsky

State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia (Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra) is one of the oldest symphony ensembles in the country: in 2021 it has celebrated its 85th anniversary. The first performance of the orchestra conducted by Alexander Gauk and Erich Kleiber, took place on October 5th, 1936 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.

Over the years, the State Orchestra was directed by outstanding musicians: Alexander Gauk (1936–1941), Natan Rakhlin (1941–1945), Konstantin Ivanov (1946–1965) and Yevgeny Svetlanov (1965–2000). In 2005, the ensemble was named after Yevgeny Svetlanov. In 2000–2002, the orchestra was headed by Vasily Sinaisky, in 2002–2011 – by Mark Gorenstein, in 2011–2021 – by Vladimir Jurowski, in 2021–2022  by Vasily Petrenko. Since 2024, Philipp Chizhevsky has been Artistic Director of the orchestra.

The orchestra’s concerts were held at the most famous concert venues in the world including the Great Hall of the Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Bolshoi Theater of Russia, the Column Hall of the House of Unions, the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Pleyel in Paris, the Colon National Opera in Buenos Aires, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. In 2013, the orchestra for the first time performed in the Red Square in Moscow.

Herman Abendroth, Ernest Ansermet, Leo Blech, Nikolai Golovanov, Kurt Sanderling, Otto Klemperer, Kirill Kondrashin, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Mazur, Nikolai Malko, Igor Markevich, Yevgeny Mravinsky, Charles Munch, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Mstislav Rostropovich, Saulus Sondeckis, Igor Stravinsky, Mariss Jansons, Andrey Boreyko, Alexander Vedernikov, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Alexander Lazarev, Alexander Sladkovsky, Leonard Slatkin, Yuri Temirkanov, Thomas Zehetmair, Mikhail Jurowski, Neeme Jarvi and other outstanding conductors directed at the conductor's desk of the orchestra.

Famous musicians and ensembles performed with the orchestra including singers Irina Arkhipova, Galina Vishnevskaya, Montserrat Caballé, Sergei Lemeshev, Elena Obraztsova, Dmitry Hvorostovsky, Maria Guleghina, Placido Domingo, Jonas Kaufmann, Sergei Leiferkus, pianists Emil Gilels, Van Cliburn, Heinrich Neuhaus, Nikolai Petrov, Sviatoslav Richter, Maria Yudina, Valery Afanassiev, Boris Berezovsky, Elisso Virsaladze, Yevgeny Kissin, Nikolai Lugansky, Denis Matsuev and Grigory Sokolov, violinists LeonidKogan, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Boris Belkin, Maxim Vengerov, Gidon Kremer, Victor Pikaysen, Vadim Repin, Vladimir Spivakov and Victor Tretyakov, violist Yuri Bashmet , cellists Mstislav Rostropovich, Natalia Gutman, Alexander Knyazev and Alexander Rudin, as well as Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir and Yurlov State Academic Choir Capella of Russia.

In recent years, the list of soloists collaborating with the ensemble has been recruited with the names of such singers as Ildar Abdrazakov, Dinara Alieva, Aida Garifullina, Khibla Gerzmava, Dmitry Korchak, Elisabeth Kulman, Jose Kura, Vasily Ladyuk, Julia Lezhneva, Waltraud Meier, Anna Netrebko and Rene Pape, pianists Marc-Andre Hamelin, Leif Ove Andsnes, Rudolf Buchbinder, Simon Trpceski, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Mitsuko Uchida, violinists Kristof Barati, Ilya Gringolts, Alina Ibragimova, Leonidas Kavakos, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Sergei Krylov, Julian Rakhlin, Julia Fischer, Thomas Zehetmair, Nikolai Znaider and Pinchas Zuckerman, violist Maxim Rysanov. Considerable attention is also paid to joint work with young musicians, including conductors Maxim Emelyanychev, Dmitry Matvienko, Marius Stravinsky, Valentin Uryupin and Philipp Chizhevsky, pianists Andrei Gugnin, Lucas Debargue, Philipp Kopachevsky and Dmitry Masleyev, violinists Alena Baeva, Pavel Milyukov and Aylen Pritchin, cellist Alexander Ramm.

Having visited abroad for the first time in 1956, the orchestra has since represented Russian art in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Denmark, Italy, Canada, China, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, USA, Thailand, France, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, South Korea, Japan and many other countries.

The discography of the ensemble includes hundreds of LP records and CDs released by leading recording companies in Russia and abroad (Melodiya, Bomba-Peter, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, BMG, Naxos, Chandos, Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm, BelAir, ICA Classics, Pentatone, Toccata Classics, Fancymusic and others). A special place in this collection belongs to the Anthology of Russian Symphonic Music, which includes audio recordings of works by Russian composers from Glinka to Stravinsky (conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov). The TV channels such as Mezzo, medici.tv, Russia-1 and Kultura, radio Orpheus made recordings of the orchestra’s concerts.

Recently, the State Orchestra performed at the G. Enescu Festival in Bucharest, Another Space, Universe is Svetlanov! festivals and the XIV Guitar Virtuosos Moscow International Festival, Summer. Music. Museum  Festival in Istra; performed world premieres of works by Alexander Vustin, Victor Yekimovsky, Efrem Podgaits, Sergei Slonimsky, Vladimir Nikolaev, Alexei Retinsky, as well as Russian premieres of works by John Adams, Brett Dean, Gerard Grisey, Victor Kissin, Gyorgy Kurtag, Valentin Silvestrov, Olivier Messiaen, Rodion Shchedrin, Carl Orff, Vladimir Tarnopolsky and Karlheinz Stockhausen; took part in the  International Tchaikovsky Competition, the Grand Piano Competition for young pianists; presented the annual cycle of Stories with Orchestra educational concerts eight times; visited the cities of Russia, Austria, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, Germany, Spain, Romania, Turkey, China, Japan. Chamber evenings with the participation of soloists of the orchestra are also regularly held.

Since 2016, the State Orchestra has been implementing a special project to support professional composer creativity involving close cooperation of the ensemble with contemporary Russian authors. The first in the history composer in residence was Alexander Vustin. For outstanding creative achievements, the collective has been bearing the honorary title of “academic” since 1972; in 1986 it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, in 2006, 2011 and 2017 it dignified the gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation.

Principal Conductor of the Tchaikovsky Perm Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre.

He has been the musical director of international festivals such as Diaghilev Seasons: Perm – Petersburg – Paris (2003–2011), Chaliapin Evenings in Ufa, and the Rudolf Nureyev International Festival of Classical Ballet in Kazan (1991–2001).

The conductor’s repertoire encompasses works from various periods and styles: from classical to contemporary, from widely-known compositions by Mozart and Shostakovich to rarely performed operas by Monteverdi and Georg von Albrecht. Platonov conducted the first Russian performances of Massenet’s operas Cléopâtre (2001) and Cendrillon, or the Tale of Cinderella (2007), Shchedrin’sLolita (2003), and Monteverdi’s Orfeo (2007). He also conducted the première of the ballet Medea(2009)to music by Ravel. These productions all featured at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Platonov has conducted the world premières of several operas (Khusain Akhmetov’s Nerkes[1994], Salavat Nizametdinov’s On a Night of a Lunar Eclipse [1996] and Memento [2000], Nikolay Sidelnikov’s Chertogon [2007], and Alexander Tchaikovsky’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich[2009]), and ballets (Igor Anufriev’s Cold Heart [1987], Yury Saulsky’s Senora from Valencia [1981], and Leyla Ismagilova’s Khodzha Nasreddin [1998]).

Platonov has conducted leading Russian orchestras: the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theatres. He has conducted orchestras from Germany, Ireland, the USA, Ukraine, and Belarus. He has worked with stars of the operatic stage such as Irina Arkhipova, Maria Bieşu, Vladimir Minin, Vladislav Piavko, Hibla Gerzmava, and Ildar Abdrazakov.

Valery Platonov was born in1953 inthe city of Beloretsk in the Republic of Bashkortostan. He graduated from the Ufa State Institute of Arts in 1977 (class of Mikhail Golubitsky) and from the Ural State Conservatory in 1987 (class of Mark Paverman). He began his career at the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre in 1981. From 1991 until 2001, he was Principal Conductor at the Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre. In 2001, he returned to work in Perm.

Boris Berezovsky has established a remarkable reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician of unique insight and sensitivity.

Born in Moscow in 1969, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatoire with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. Following his London début at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as "an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power"; two years later that promise was fulfilled when he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Boris Berezovsky works regularly as concerto soloist with orchestras including the Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Hamburg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Komische Oper, Hessischer Rundfunk, Russian National Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and with conductors such as Kurt Masur, Charles Dutoit, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Alezander Lazarev, Andrew Litton, Mikhail Pletnev, Antonio Pappano etc.

Boris Berezovsky’s recent recordings of the complete Beethoven Concerti with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard have been greeted with high critical acclaim. He has also made a considerable number of records for Teldec including solo discs of works by Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Medtner, Ravel, the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies and concertos by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Liszt. His recording of the Rachmaninov Sonata was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and his Ravel disc was specially recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, BBC Music Magazine and the Independent on Sunday. He released a live DVD of Liszt’s Transcendental Studies taken from a performance at La Roque d’Antheron for Naive. Mr Berezovsky embarked on a collaboration with Warner Classics with his CD of piano trios with Dmitri Makhtin and Alexander Kniazev, and his most recent recording of the Chopin/Godowsky’s Etudes received high critical acclaim winning the instrumental category of the first BBC Music Magazine Awards.

In recital and as a chamber musician Boris Berezovsky performs regularly in recital series and festivals world-wide. His forthcoming performances include a return to the QEH International Piano Series, the Concertgebouw, La Roque d’Antheron, Ruhr Piano Festival, Les Folles Journées de Nantes, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Megaron, Athens and Symphony Hall, Birmingham amongst others. He has a noted duo partnership with violinist Vadim Repin and Brigitte Engerer, and his piano trio performs throughout Europe at the highest level.