| Variations of Name | Valery Abisalovich Gergiev |
| Biography | Valery Gergiev is a Soviet and Russian conductor and opera company director of Ossetian origin. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.
In 1978, he became assistant conductor at the Kirov Opera, now the Mariinsky Opera, under Yuri Temirkanov, where he made his debut conducting Sergei Prokofiev's War and Peace. He was chief conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra from 1981 until 1985 the year he made his debut in the United Kingdom, along with pianist Evgeny Kissin and violinists Maxim Vengerov and Vadim Repin at the Lichfield Festival.
He became chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky in 1988, and overall director of the company, appointed by the Russian government, in 1996. In 1991, Gergiev made his American début, performing War and Peace with the San Francisco Opera. From 1995 to 2008, Gergiev was principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. |