Sir Nicholas Kenyon Jonathan Mills Stephan Pauly Dear Valery With your untiring commitment to music and your endless energy in promoting it, you have brought a unique excitement to our musical life – especially here at the Barbican, where your leadership of the LSO has produced so many thrilling concerts for us, and in St Petersburg, where the triumphant opening of your new opera house has begun a new chapter in the life of the city. We will never know how you do so much: at the BBC Proms you were once early for a rehearsal, and complained to me wistfully ‘Ah, I could have caught a later plane!’. You have been such a stimulating companion and such a great presence on our musical scene: many happy returns, and many more triumphs to come. Sir Nicholas Kenyon Managing Director, Barbican 26 Birthday Messages Vivienne Westwood Happy Birthday Maestro, love Vivienne and Andreas You first appeared at the Edinburgh International Festival on 10 August 1991, marking your UK debut with a sensational performance. All who experienced those performances of Mussorgsky from then a relatively unknown maestro from St Petersburg knew they had witnessed something very rare and remarkable. In the subsequent two decades, you have thrilled Edinburgh audiences in your appearances with the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and, of course, the <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Orchestra.Your performances in 2008 of the complete Prokofiev Symphonies and Violin <strong>Concert</strong>os with Leonidas Kavakos and the LSO, and Szymanowski’s opera King Roger at the Festival Theatre were landmark events in the history of this Festival. Beyond your position as a conductor, you have forged a crucial role as an artistic diplomat, often demonstrating that the baton is mightier than the sword. For you are not only a great musician, you are a great human being. A man who believes passionately in the capacity of culture to enrich the lives of people irrespective of class or creed. You bring the experience of an extremely busy lifetime, great wisdom and humility, and above all, a deep insight into the fragility of the human condition, which is an inspiration to audiences and artists alike. We hope to benefit from your friendship and artistry for many years to come. Happy Birthday Maestro! Jonathan Mills Director, Edinburgh International Festival Maestro, dear Valery Gergiev, For more than two decades now we have enjoyed the artistic collaboration between you and the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Time and time again you have conducted concerts with ‘your’ orchestras, the <strong>London</strong> <strong>Symphony</strong> Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Mariinsky, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic. You thrilled the Alte Oper audiences in the 1990s, when the ‘Mariinsky’ still operated under the name ‘Kirov Opera’, just as you thrilled them when you came here in October last year with the LSO. All of us are grateful for these unforgettable concert experiences. Just think of your extended visit with the whole Mariinsky Theatre ensemble, when you gave the German premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s Enchanted Wanderer, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Tchaikovsky’s dramatic Queen of Spades in our concert hall! Russian repertoire can hardly be given so authentically – you have set standards with your interpretations of orchestral works by Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. Between the Alte Oper and you, an artistic friendship has grown out of valuable regular artistic collaboration – we are very grateful for this and we all are looking forward to many more concerts with you in the future! On behalf of the entire team of the Alte Oper Frankfurt, I wish you with all my heart a very happy birthday, as well as every success and fulfilment for your work and for you personally! Stephan Pauly Artistic Director, Alte Oper Frankfurt
Happy Birthday Valery! Birthday Messages 27
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