Born in America and educated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Gavriel Heine is equally at home in symphonic, operatic and ballet repertoire. He was one of Ilya Musin's last pupils at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and follows a long line of conductors who were deeply influenced by the legendary pedagogue. In 2007, Valery Gergiev invited Heine to make his debut at the Mariinsky Theatre, resulting in his appointment to the conducting roster. He has since led over 250 performances of opera, ballet and symphonic works at the theatre, where his repertoire includes the operas Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Macbeth, La Bohème, Tosca, Il Trittico, Pelléas et Mélisande, Jenůfa, L’heure Espagnole/Gianni Schicchi, Bluebeard’s Castle, Turn of the Screw, My Fair Lady and Pagliacci, as well as the ballets The Firebird, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Sylvia, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Apollo. He has conducted the Mariinsky Orchestra on tour during the Gergiev Festival in Mikkeli, Finland and made his Bolshoi Theatre debut conducting the Mariinsky’s production of Bluebeard’s Castle during the Golden Mask festival in Moscow to great critical acclaim. He is also co-creator and conductor of the Mariinsky’s first subscription series for young people - the very popular Academy of Young Theatre-Goers - where he created and conducted special versions of The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Love for Three Oranges and Wagner’s Ring for younger audiences. He served as Artistic Coordinator/Assistant Conductor of the Mariinsky’s New Horizons Festival of Contemporary Music, conducting works by Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, György Kurtág, Rodion Shchedrin, Vladimir Tarnopolsky and Boris Tishchenko.
As a guest conductor, Heine has appeared with the Sinfonieorchester Basel, La Verdi Orchestra of Milan, Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of New Russia (Moscow), the State Academic Cappella Orchestra (St. Petersburg), Samara Philharmonic Orchestra, Mikkeli Chamber Orchestra (Finland), and has led rehearsals with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
From 2003-2007 he served as Principal Guest Conductor/Acting Music Director of the Kharkov Symphony Orchestra – Ukraine’s only orchestra for emerging professional musicians - and has held the position of Assistant Conductor/Chorusmaster of the Center City Opera Theater (Philadelphia). He is currently Music Director of Northern Lights Festival Opera (Minnesota) since 2011, where he has conducted new productions of Gianni Schicchi, Pagliacci and La Bohème.
Heine is a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory (cello performance), and studied conducting with Ilya Musin and Leonid Korchmar at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He has a Masters degree in conducting from Indiana University, Bloomington, where he studied with Imre Palló, Thomas Baldner and David Effron. He has taken part in master classes with Michael Morgan, Carl St. Clair and Colin Metters, including a televised masterclass with Valery Gergiev and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at De Doelen in Rotterdam. He was chosen by the League of American Orchestras as one of six rising conductors to lead the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra at the 2013 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview in Jacksonville, FL.
Notable recent events include conducting the premieres of Robert Carsen's production of My Fair Lady and Delibes/Ashton's ballet Sylvia at the Mariinsky Theatre, and work as rehearsal/cover conductor for a tour with Valery Gergiev and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Future plans include a new production of Carmen in July 2014 at the Northern Lights Music Festival and conducting Apollo/ A Midsummer Night's Dream on tour with the Mariinsky Ballet to the UK (London, Covent Garden) in August 2014.
|
