An accolade befitting Tchaikovsky

Mikhail Tatarnikov, the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s Musical Director and Principal Conductor, has been honoured with a special Tchaikovsky Award.

The award was instituted in 2015, on the 175th anniversary of the great Russian composer’s birth. It is bestowed annually for outstanding contributions made to the development of musical art and the popularization of Russian music abroad. It was first conferred on the composer and People’s Artist of Russia Sergey Slonimsky. The second award ceremony took place at the St. Petersburg Chamber Opera on 8 May.

“It is symbolic that this ceremony is being held in a wonderful theatre in the former mansion of Baron von Derviz, of whom Mikhail Tatarnikov is a direct descendant,” said Konstantin Sukhenko, Chairman of the Cultural Committee, when presenting the maestro with the certificate and trophy.

Tatarnikov is a much-lauded representative of Russian culture abroad; he is regularly invited to appear at the world’s top opera houses and to conduct leading symphony orchestras. Interestingly, his career outside Russia began with Tchaikovsky: in 2010 he was the musical director of a production of Eugene Onegin at the Latvian National Opera in Riga. In 2014 the Mikhailovsky Theatre’s production of Eugene Onegin, directed by Mikhail Tatarnikov, won the Golden Mask Award for Best Opera Production. The past few seasons have turned out to be incredibly productive ones for the maestro. He conducted such operas as Tchaikovsky’s Enchantress at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Prokofiev’s Gambler at the Opéra de Monte Carlo, and Rubinstein’s Demon, as well as Rachmaninoff’s Troika at the La Monnaie in Brussels, the latter of which was staged at the Mikhailovsky Theatre in April. His concert performances with the Ile de France Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in the United States have been a great success as well.

Tatarnikov often talks about the enormous significance Tchaikovsky’s name holds in Russian culture: “No one in the West would know anything about Russian culture, were it not for Tchaikovsky. All symphony orchestras play Tchaikovsky’s music. The importance of his contribution to Russian music is indisputable. He was a truly brilliant composer who so precisely reflected his era.”