Alexander Vedernikov

1964 (Moscow) — 2020 (Moscow)

Alexander Vedernikov (11 January 1964 – 30 October 2020) was a Soviet and Russian conductor. He was named an Honored Worker of Arts of the Russian Federation in 2007. Born in Moscow, he was the son of Bolshoi Theatre bass soloist Alexander Vedernikov and pianist, organist, and Moscow Conservatory professor Natalia Gureyeva.

Vedernikov studied piano at the Academic Music College at the Moscow Conservatory and graduated from the conservatory in 1988, specializing in opera and symphonic conducting. He studied with Leonid Nikolayev and continued his training with Mark Ermler. From 1988 to 1991, he conducted at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre. From 1988 to 1995, he was an assistant conductor and later a second conductor of the Tchaikovsky Grand Symphony Orchestra under Vladimir Fedoseyev.

During the 1990s, he conducted ballet performances in Milan, Turin, and Rome, including Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty, and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. He made his Covent Garden debut in the 1996–97 season, conducting Prokofiev’s Cinderella and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. He later conducted operas in Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Zurich, and made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2013.

Vedernikov appeared with Russian orchestras including the State Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, and the St Petersburg Philharmonia Academic Symphony Orchestra. His engagements also included the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, French National Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, and National Symphony Orchestra in the United States. From 2001 to 2004, he was artistic director and chief conductor of the Russian Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra, which he founded.

From 27 June 2001 to 17 July 2009, Vedernikov was chief conductor and music director of the Bolshoi Theatre. His productions there included Khovanshchina, Adriana Lecouvreur, Ruslan and Lyudmila, Turandot, The Flying Dutchman, The Fiery Angel, War and Peace, Eugene Onegin, Falstaff, Boris Godunov in the composer’s version, and The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh. He also served as music director for the premiere of Leonid Desyatnikov’s opera Rosenthal’s Children.

Vedernikov was chief conductor of the Odense Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2018 and became its first honorary conductor in 2018. In September 2017, he was appointed chief conductor of the Royal Danish Opera. In 2019, he became music director and chief conductor of the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St Petersburg. He died in Moscow on 30 October 2020, aged 56, from pneumonia while receiving treatment for coronavirus at City Hospital No. 52. He was buried at Miusskoye Cemetery.

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