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 2006–2021. 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 (Rome), Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony orchestras, and in North America has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago Symphony orchestras. Equally at home in the opera house, and with more than 30 operas in his repertoire, Vasily has conducted widely on the operatic stage.

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’s 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. He was Gramophone Artist of the Year (2017) and Classical BRIT Male Artist of the Year (2010), and holds honorary degrees from Liverpool’s three universities. In 2024, Vasily launched a new academy for young conductors, co-organized by the Primavera Foundation Armenia and the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra.

Described as “pristine, lyrical, and intelligent (The New York Times) and “a musician of unusual refinement and imagination (Boston Globe), Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki looks back on a career spanning a decade and a half on the world’s greatest stages. He works closely with the foremost conductors and orchestras of our time, performing more than 100 concerts a year.

The 2025–26 Season sees him returning to Rotterdam Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra, and Radio-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, as well as San Francisco Symphony and Houston Symphony, among others.

In August 2025, he concluded the renowned Seoul International Music Festival at the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea with a Beethoven concert and a solo recital with his highly acclaimed Preludes program, which was recently released by Deutsche Grammophon. A further 30 piano recitals take him across Europe and North America, including the Philharmonie Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, Palau Barcelona, Koerner Hall Toronto, and the National Arts Centre Ottawa. Continuing his collaboration with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, which he led from the piano in a tour of several Beethoven cycles in the previous season, he will perform another Beethoven cycle at the Enescu and Merano Festivals.

Recent return invitations include the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, and Staatskapelle Dresden. He made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in spring 2024. Lisiecki is a fixture at major summer festivals across Europe and North America, has performed at the Salzburg Festival, and recently made his third appearance at the BBC Proms. His previous recital program was celebrated in more than 50 cities around the globe.

Jan Lisiecki was offered an exclusive recording contract by Deutsche Grammophon at the age of 15. Since then, he has recorded nine albums which have received the JUNO Award, ECHO Klassik, Gramophone Critics’ Choice, Diapason d’Or, and Edison Klassiek.

At 18, he received both the Leonard Bernstein Award and Gramophone’s Young Artist Award, becoming the youngest ever recipient of the latter. He was named UNICEF Ambassador to Canada in 2012.