Mikhail Agrest

Conductor

Based in Germany, the Russian-American conductor has led performances at many renowned venues including The Metropolitan Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Zurich Opera House, Teatro Massimo Palermo, Teatro San Carlo di Napoli and Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Russia. Mikhail has served as Principal Conductor of the Stuttgart Ballet. Mikhail’s upcoming and recent commitments include Nutcracker performances at New York City Ballet and at San Francisco Ballet, Giselle at Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Eugene Onegin and Il barbiere di Siviglia at the State Opera of Hannover and Tosca at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe. In the symphonic field, Mikhail has led concerts with orchestras including Staatskapelle Dresden, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Seattle Symphony, He has collaborated with renowned singers such as Anna Netrebko, Amanda Roocroft, Stuart Skelton, Catherine Malfitano, Vladimir Galouzine, Olga Borodina and Ekaterina Semenchuk, among others. His repertoire spans more than 40 operas.

A scion of the great Russian conducting tradition, he studied conducting at St. Petersburg Conservatory under the guidance of the legendary Professors Ilya Musin and Mariss Jansons. Agrest immigrated to the United States with his family as a teenager and went on to earn a degree in violin performance from Indiana University, where he studied withJoseph Gingold. He began studying violin in his native St. Petersburg and upon immigrating to the USA, he received a degree in violin performance from Indiana University (Bloomington), studying with Josef Gingold. Following his true passion in music, he returned to Russia to study conducting with Ilya Musin and he was the last student of late Mariss Jansons at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He honed his craft at the Mariinsky Theatre from 2001 till 2014, when he was forced to leave the theater. His pro-Ukranian position after the Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine was not tolerated. Alexei Ratmansky's ballet Tchaikovsky Overtures marked his debut with Bayerisches Staatsballett.

(Information as of March 2026)