Kirill Petrenko

Petrenko made his name in a small Thuringian house. Born in Omsk, brought as a teenager to Vorarlberg, where he continued his musical studies, and then to the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna for conducting, he served as Kapellmeister at the Volksoper before taking the general music directorship at Meiningen in 1999 — and there mounted a Ring in 2001 that attracted international attention. The Komische Oper Berlin followed from 2002, the Bavarian State Opera from 2013 to 2020, and the Bayreuth Ring in Frank Castorf’s new production, which he conducted from 2013. In 2019 he became chief conductor and artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic. He gives few interviews. Born in 1972, he began the piano at six, appeared as soloist with the Omsk Symphony Orchestra at eleven, emigrated with his family to Austria in 1990, graduated with honours from the conservatory in Feldkirch and studied in Vienna with Uroš Lajovic, holding the Volksoper post from 1997 to 1999 and the Komische Oper directorship until 2007. He was named chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2015 and took up the post in the 2019-20 season, and recorded Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff and Schoenberg albums on Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings. Opernwelt named him conductor of the year eight times between 2007 and 2025, the International Opera Awards twice, and the Leonie Sonning Music Prize came in 2026.