Conductor
Mikhail Agrest was born in St Petersburg and began his musical training as a violinist at the Leningrad Conservatoire School for Gifted Children. After moving to the USA in 1989, Agrest studied with Josef Gingold at the Indiana University School of Music, returning to St Petersburg for post-graduate studies at the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire with Ilya Musin and Mariss Jansons. In the summers of 2000 and 2001, he was awarded a fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival´s American Academy of Conducting where he studied with David Zinman and Jorma Panula.
Mr. Agrest is a laureatttt of the A. Pedrotti International Conducting Competition (Italy, 2001) and of the Mitropoulos Conducting Competition (Greece, 2002).
Mikhail Agrest joined the Mariinsky Theatre in 2001. Has conducted the operas A Life for the Tsar, The Snow Maiden, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia, Sadko, Oedipus Rex, Le rossignol, The Fiery Angel, Lucia di Lammermoor, La bohème, Il trittico, La Cleopatra and Così fan tutte and the ballets La Sylphide, Giselle, Le Corsaire, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Firebird, Petrouchka, Le sacre du printemps, Prodigal Son, Jewels, La Valse, The Four Temperaments, Romeo and Juliet, Manon, Cinderella and The Nutcracker. In 2002, he was nominated for "Best work by a conductor" for the Golden Sofit, St Petersburg´s most prestigious theatre prize, for Cinderella, Prodigal Son and Così fan tutte .
With the Mariinsky Theatre he has performed throughout Europe, the Far East, Japan, the UK and the USA.
In July 2003 together with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Mikhail Agrest made his Metropolitan Opera debut with Rimsky-Korsakov´s The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia, and his Covent Garden debut with Le sacre du printemps and Les noces.
In 2005-2006 he worked with the London Royal Ballet on Romeo and Juliet , Le sacre du printemps and L´histoire du soldat.
In 2005 he appeared with the Leipzig Gewandhaus and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. The same year saw his debuts with the Stockholm Philharmonic, Suisse Romande (Switzerland), and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (USA).
In October 2006 English National Opera presented a new David Alden production of Leoš Janáček´s Jenůfa under Mikhail Agrest.
In 2007 he has appeared with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (UK), the Malmö Symfoni Orkester, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with Olga Borodina. Plans for May 2007 include concerts with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Hungary and the Irish and Danish Radio Orchestras.
