June 23-28, 2026
Armenia, Yerevan
In June, Armenia will again host a unique educational event for the region: the Academy for Young Conductors by Maestro Vasily Petrenko for the second time. Founded in 2024, this initiative once again brings together the Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (the UK) and emerging conductors from across the globe. The Academy is co-organized by the Primavera Charitable Foundation, which Vasily Petrenko supports as Chairman of the Artistic Council of the Foundation, and the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra (Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Eduard Topchjan), which celebrates a centennial anniversary this season.
Over and over, Armenia is reaffirming its position as a stable cultural and educational platform, on which the Academy acts as a unique bridge for peace and cultural dialogue, proving that art knows no borders and can unite young artists of different nationalities. For the first edition of the Academy (2024), five young conductors were selected, representing China, Mexico, Russia, Iran-Armenia, and Norway-Ukraine.
This year, more than 60 conductors from 22 countries around the world applied to participate in the Academy, of which only 6 were invited through a rigorous selection process. On June 23-28, 2026, the Academy will host selected participants from France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Poland, and Russia.
“The Academy is an opportunity for young conductors to have a workshop with someone more experienced, with a bigger career, and with a real orchestra. For me, the Academy is about supporting the growth, nurturing the talents of the next generation of conductors, and giving them chances.” – Vasily Petrenko
In addition to the 20-minutes daily individual work with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra, all active participants will have daily individual sessions with Vasily Petrenko and participate in an exclusive workshop The Secrets of a Conductor’s Job Beyond Music. The educational journey will conclude with a gala concert on June 28, 2026, at the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall, open to the public.
Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he took on in 2021, becoming Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra following his hugely acclaimed fifteen-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.
Petrenko has worked with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic and NHK Symphony Orchestras, and in North America has lead the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. He has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival, Grafenegg Festival and made frequent appearances at the BBC Proms. Equally at home in the opera house, and with over thirty operas in his repertoire, Vasily Petrenko has conducted widely on the operatic stage, including at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, Opernhaus Zürich, the Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.
He has performed at the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Grafenegg, and Glyndebourne festivals. Petrenko’s repertoire includes about 30 opera works, which he has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Paris National Opera, Zurich, the Bavarian State Opera, the National Opera of the Netherlands, the Mikhailovsky Opera and other opera houses.
Petrenko was educated at the St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School – Russia’s oldest music school – and the St Petersburg Conservatoire, where he studied with suchlegendary Maestros as Ilya Musin, Mariss Jansons and Yuri Temirkanov.
