Alexander Vedernikov

Conductor Alexander Vedernikov was equally prominent in the fields of opera and orchestral music, in both his home country of Russia and in the West. As music director of the Bolshoi Theatre in the 2000s decade, he led that venue's famed orchestra in new directions. Vedernikov was born in Moscow on January 11, 1964. His parents were both musicians at the highest level: his father, Alexander Filipovich Vedernikov, was a major bass singer of the Soviet era, and his mother taught organ at the Moscow Conservatory. Vedernikov attended the conservatory himself, graduating in 1988. His first conducting posts were at the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchencko Moscow Academic Music Theatre (1988-1991) and the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio (1988-1995). At that point, Vedernikov established his own Russian Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra, leading it until 2004. The beginnings of Vedernikov's Western career also date to the 1990s: he made guest appearances with orchestras in Rome, Turin, and Milan, leading Russian ballets. He specialized in Russian music, both mainstream and contemporary. In 2001, he was named music director of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. There, he raised the orchestra's quality and inaugurated performances of orchestral as well as theatrical music. His tenure at the Bolshoi came to an end in 2009 when he resigned, citing disagreements with the institution's management, but by then, he had other irons in the fire. Vedernikov became the chief conductor of Denmark's Odense Symphony Orchestra in 2009. In 2017, he became the chief conductor at the Royal Danish Opera. Vedernikov also amassed a long list of guest conducting appearances, both in the West (the London Philharmonic, and the BBC Symphony, among many others) and in Russia (including the Russian National Orchestra, which he led in concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York and Kennedy Center in Washington). He recorded for PentaTone, Naxos, Melodiya, and other labels. In 2019, Vedernikov was heard with Martha Argerich, a frequent collaborator, in a new recording of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, on the Warner Classics label. Vedernikov died on October 29, 2020, a victim of the COVID-19 pandemic.