Yuri Serov

Yuri Serov is an unusually versatile musician, equally noted as a conductor and a pianist, and he is also active as an educator and scholar. He has advanced to high positions in his native Russia but is also well known in the West and has recorded internationally. Serov graduated in 1991 from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg and went on for a graduate degree there. As a student, he emphasized piano studies, and as new opportunities opened up after the fall of the Soviet Union, he traveled to Salzburg and Weimar, studying with pianist Hartmut Höll and serving internships. Soon his conducting career began to develop with equal speed. Serov has performed as a conductor, pianist, or ensemble member in more than 35 countries, and he was featured on major television programs in Scandinavia, Belgium, and Brazil in addition to Russia. From 2012 to 2017, Serov was chief conductor of the Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra (also known as the Volgograd Academic Symphony Orchestra), also finding time for official guest conductor positions with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and the Karelia State Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, Serov cultivates ongoing collaborations with the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, and the European Chamber Orchestra, as well as other groups inside and outside Russia. He is the artistic director of the Northern Flowers Chamber Music Festival in St. Petersburg. Serov has recorded some 70 albums for labels in Russia, western Europe, Japan, and the U.S., with many focused on piano or chamber music. He accompanied a variety of singers on a series of albums devoted to the complete songs and romances of Shostakovich on the René Gailly label, beginning in the late 1990s. Serov is featured on a number of performances issued by the Northern Flowers Festival on its label, and he has conducted the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra on several albums of Russian repertory on the Naxos label. Serov is the founder of his own CD series, the St. Petersburg Musical Archive, and he is the author of many scholarly articles and essays about music. ~ James Manheim