| Biography | The Russian National Orchestra premiered in Moscow in 1990.
It was the first Russian orchestra to perform at the Apostolic Palace, Vatican and in Israel.
The RNO's first recording (1991) was Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, Pathétique, released on Virgin Classics. Since then, the orchestra has made over 75 recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, PentaTone Classics, Ondine, Warner Classics and other labels, and with conductors that include RNO Founder and Artistic Director Mikhail Pletnev, Vladimir Jurowski, Kent Nagano, Alexander Vedernikov, Carlo Ponti Jr., José Serebrier and Vasily Petrenko.
The RNOs recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Beintus's Wolf Tracks, conducted by Kent Nagano and narrated by Sophia Loren, Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev, was the winner of a 2004 Grammy Award, making the RNO the first Russian orchestra ever to win this honor. A Spanish-language version narrated by Antonio Banderas was released in 2007, following a Russian version narrated by actors Oleg Tabakov and Sergei Bezrukov, with a Mandarin edition following in 2011. Narrators in concert versions of these works have included actors Danny Glover, Diana Douglas, Sean Dill and Debbie Allen, model Tatiana Sorokko, Singaporean violinist Min Lee, and BBC anchor Seva Novgorodsev.
A regular visitor to the Schleswig-Holstein, Gstaad and Rheingau festivals, the RNO is also the founding orchestra of Napa Valley Festival del Sole, Festival of the Arts BOCA in Florida, and the Singapore Sun Festival, and resident orchestra for multiple seasons of the Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy. The RNO launched its own annual festival in 2009, held each September in Moscow.
In 2008, a panel of international critics assembled by Gramophone named the Russian National Orchestra as one of the world's top orchestras.
The Russian National Orchestra is a private institution supported by individuals, corporations and foundations in Russia and throughout the world. Affiliated organizations include the Russian National Orchestra Trust, the Russian Arts Foundation and the American Council of the RNO. Another RNO innovation is Cultural Allies, an ongoing program encompassing exchanges between artists in Russia and the West, and the commissioning of new works. |