Mariinsky Orchestra And San Diego Symphony Orchestra Join Together For Rare Performance

Powerhouse international conductor Valery Gergiev will conduct the Mariinsky Orchestra from St. Petersburg and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra on Wednesday, October 24 at 8 p.m., at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall. The rare concert will feature the Mariinsky Orchestra performing Glinka's Russlan and Ludmilla; the San Diego Symphony performing Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia; and Maestro Gergiev will conduct the combined orchestras performing together Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 Leningrad.

The art of Valery Gergiev is in great demand throughout the world. The maestro is a vivid representative of the St. Petersburg conducting school and a former pupil of the legendary Professor Ilya Musin. While still a student at the Leningrad Conservatoire, Gergiev won the Herbert von Karajan Competition in Berlin and the All-Union Conducting Competition in Moscow, following which he was invited to join the Kirov Theatre (now the Mariinsky) as an assistant to the principal conductor. His debut as a conductor at the theatre came in 1978. In 1988 Valery Gergiev was appointed Music Director of the Mariinsky Theatre, and in 1996 he became its Artistic and General Director (leading the orchestra and opera and ballet companies). From 1995 to 2008 Valery Gergiev was Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic (of which he remains an honorary conductor to this day), and from 2007 to 2015 he was Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. Since autumn 2015 the maestro has headed the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Over the course of my career I've had the opportunity to work with Valery and I'm so pleased and honored to partner with him to create this unique experience for the region," said San Diego Symphony CEO, Martha Gilmer. "Known as one of the busiest conductors on the planet, Valery is excited to work with our orchestra and come to our city as he recognizes we have some of the best musicians in the country. It will be a very special evening of music steeped in Russian history, style and tradition."

The Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev has scaled new heights, assimilating not just opera and ballet scores, but also an expansive symphony music repertoire - every symphony by Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibelius, Prokofiev and Shostakovich and works by Berlioz, Bruckner, Rimsky-Korsakov, Richard Strauss, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Dutilleux, Ustvolskaya, Shchedrin, Kancheli and other composers.

The October 24 special concert will serve as the first time the Mariinsky Orchestra has combined with a U.S. orchestra. Together, the power of two distinct orchestras from two countries will combine on the same stage to perform the powerful Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 Leningrad. This great piece of music will not only fill the stage with extraordinary music for the audience, but also provide a rare opportunity for the San Diego Symphony musicians to work with colleagues from around the world. It will also be a momentous moment when a record number of musicians perform together on the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall stage.

Tickets for this special concert range in price from $25 to $109. Subscriptions for the 2018/19 season are currently on sale. Single tickets go on sale August 26. For more information or to make a purchase, visit www.sandiegosymphony.org.

About the San Diego Symphony

Founded in 1910, the San Diego Symphony is the oldest orchestra in California and one of the largest and most significant cultural organizations in San Diego. The Orchestra performs for over 250,000 people each season, offering a wide variety of programming at its two much loved venues, Copley Symphony Hall in downtown San Diego and the Embarcadero Marina Park South on San Diego Bay. In early 2018, the San Diego Symphony announced the appointment of Rafael Payare as music director designate. Payare will lead the orchestra's 82 full-time musicians, graduates of the finest and most celebrated music schools in the United States and abroad, also serve as the orchestra for the San Diego Opera each season, as well as performing at several regional performing arts centers. For over 30 years, the San Diego Symphony has provided comprehensive music education and community engagement programs reaching more than 65,000 students annually and bringing innovative programming to San Diego's diverse neighborhoods and schools. For more information, visit www.sandiegosymphony.org.