Valery Gergiev

Career Trajectory

Gergiev rose from student conductor to international prominence with remarkable speed, winning the All-Union Conductors' Competition in 1975 and the prestigious Herbert von Karajan Conductors' Competition in Berlin in 1977 while still in his mid-twenties. His 1978 professional debut conducting Prokofiev at the Kirov Opera launched a career of sustained excellence that would culminate in his appointment as artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, where he has presided over the company's ascent to global prominence for more than three decades. Today, Gergiev stands as one of the world's most sought-after conductors, commanding multiple major institutions and maintaining an exhaustive recording and performance schedule across the world's greatest stages.