RPO x Vasily Petrenko: Wallen, Beethoven, Strauss

Acknowledged as one of the UK’s most prodigious orchestras, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) enjoys an international reputation for bringing audiences worldwide first‐class performances and the highest possible standards of music‐making across a diverse range of musical repertoire. This was the vision of the Orchestra’s flamboyant founder Sir Thomas Beecham, whose legacy is maintained today as the Orchestra continues to thrive.

Born in St Petersburg in 1976, Vasily Petrenko is recognised as one of the exceptional musicians of his generation. Petrenko was still in his teens when he became resident conductor at St Petersburg Opera and Ballet Theatre, and has gone on to work with some of the world’s finest orchestras, earning international acclaim – and top prizes – for his inspirational performances.

His Liverpool debut with the Phil in November 2004, and subsequent appearances in October and December 2005, created huge excitement: “…memorable for the sheer electricity emanating from the podium. Instantly there was a sense of dialogue between conductor and musicians, between one orchestral family and another, between one phrase and the next, to release natural‐seeming eloquence from his players.”  The Daily Telegraph

Born in Munich in 1983, Julia Fischer studied with the famous violinist Ana Chumachenco. Since 2006, she is herself Germany's youngest Professor of Violin at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main.

In 2005, Fischer won Germany's coveted 'ECHO' Award for her recording of 'Russian Concertos' by Khatchaturian, Prokofiev, and Glazounov. In 2006, she was named by BBC Music Magazine the 'Best Newcomer of the Year'. She was 'Artist of the Year' in 2007 at the Gramophone Awards and 'Instrumentalist of the Year' at the 2009 MIDEM Classical Awards.


Julia Fischer performs world‐wide with renowned orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.