Vasily
Petrenko Academy
for Conductors

The Academy offers an opportunity for young conductors to improve their skills and gain experience under the guidance of the world-leading conductor, the Chairman of the Primavera Foundation Artistic Council maestro Vasily Petrenko. The Academy invites young conductors from all over the world to Armenia, therefore bringing Yerevan to the spotlight of classical music aficionados and professionals.

Four-day intensive educational program, aimed at improving the musical, social, and mental skills essential for a conductor’s career, with a final gala evening bringing Conductors Academy students to conduct a concert on the stage!

THE ACADEMY IS ORGANIZED BY PRIMAVERA FOUNDATION ARMENIA AND THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

If you are filling out the application form from Russia, please use this link

What active participants will get:

• Four days working with an orchestra on stage for up to 20 minutes per day, three training days plus a dress rehearsal
• Three individual sessions with Vasily Petrenko
• Active participation in Vasily Petrenko’s Workshop: The Secrets of a Conductor Job Beyond Music
• Gala-concert: leading an orchestra on stage. The performance will feature successful active Academy participants at the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall in Yerevan on 6 July 2024

A maximum of SIX active participants will be selected. Those applicants who are not selected as active participants will be able to come to the Academy as an audience and join Vasily Petrenko’s Workshop: The Secrets of a Conductor Job Beyond Music.

Before filling in the application please make sure that you fit the criteria:

• Professional higher musical education in the field of conducting, completed or ongoing
• Proven participation in conducting master-classes/training programs
• Minimum two recent non-edited videos (preferably the view from an orchestra)
• Motivational letter up to 300 words
• Biography
• A photo in JPG format (high resolution)
• $30 application fee payment confirmation

Successful applicants will be notified by email and announced on the Primavera Foundation Armenia and Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra social media profiles:

REPERTOIRE

SCHEDULE FOR ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS

COSTS FOR SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES

Vasily Petrenko is the Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2021), and Chief Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (since 2015). He is Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, following his hugely acclaimed fifteen year tenure as their Chief Conductor from 2006-2021, and has also served as Principal Guest Conductor and subsequently Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia (2016-2022), Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013-2020), Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2009–2013), and Principal Guest Conductor of St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre, where he began his career as Resident Conductor (1994–1997).

He has worked with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, 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. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and made frequent appearances at the BBC Proms. Recent years have seen a series of highly successful North American debuts, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Montréal and St Louis Symphony orchestras.

Equally at home in the opera house, and with over thirty operas in his repertoire, Vasily Petrenko made his debuts in 2010 at Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Macbeth) and the Opéra de Paris (Eugene Onegin), and in recent seasons has also conducted at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, Zürich Opera and Bayerische Staatsoper. In the 19/20 season, he also made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera New York with a production of The Queen of Spades.

Vasily Petrenko has established a strongly defined profile as a recording artist. Amongst a wide discography, his Shostakovich symphony cycle for Naxos Records with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has garnered worldwide acclaim. With the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, he has recently released cycles of Scriabin’s symphonies and Strauss’ tone poems.

In September 2017, Vasily Petrenko was honored 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.

Vasily Petrenko was born in 1976 and started his music education at the St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – Russia’s oldest music school. He then studied at the St Petersburg Conservatoire where he participated in masterclasses with such luminary figures as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov.

CONTACTS

edu(@)primavera-foundation.com