TEHRAN-The celebrated Iranian composer and conductor Ali Rahbari, who is the permanent guest conductor of the Mariinsky Opera in St. Petersburg, Russia, will conduct the Mariinsky Orchestra in two performances later this month.

In July 2022, he made his debut at the Mariinsky Theater and since then, he has been a regular on the Mariinsky stage, IRNA reported.

The first upcoming performance at the St. Petersburg Concert Hall on January 17 will include “Symphonies No. 8 & No. 9” by the Czech composer Antonín Leopold Dvořák.

In the second concert, slated for January 24, they will perform “Festive Overture” by the Russian composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich, “Symphony No. 5” by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and “Cello Concerto” by Dvořák.

Russian cellist Vasily Stepanov, 29, will accompany the orchestra as a soloist too. The young musician has appeared in Russia and internationally in the U.S., France, Spain, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia, Moldova, and Tanzania.

He has also received several awards since 2010 including the 1st prize at Riga Classic Strings Violin and Cello International Competition and Festival in 2018.

Rahbari, 75, embarked on his musical journey at the age of five, learning to play the violin. He graduated from the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts in 1971, specializing in composition under the tutelage of Gottfried von Einem, and completed his conducting studies in 1974, guided by Hans Swarovsky. He is a laureate of international conducting competitions, securing the gold medal in Besançon, France (1977), and the silver medal in Geneva (1978).

He had the opportunity to assist Herbert von Karajan, conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival in 1980.

Rahbari has conducted over 120 orchestras worldwide, including Orchestra della Svizzera Romanda, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, French Chamber Orchestra, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and Prague Symphony Orchestra. 

In 2005, he conducted Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Tehran over seven evenings, garnering acclaim from the Tehran audience. He served as the principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, receiving the Dvořák Medal in 1985 for his collaboration with the ensemble, and also led the Belgrade Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Belgian Radio and Television Orchestra (later becoming its principal conductor from 1988 to 1996). 

He was the principal conductor of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virtuosi di Praga chamber orchestra. From 2000 to 2004 he was the chief conductor and musical director of the Malaga Symphony Orchestra, Spain.

In 1997, Rahbari formed the Persian International Philharmonic Orchestra in Bregenz, Austria, by bringing together 60 Iranian musicians from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S. With this ensemble, he recorded Rimsky-Korsakov's “Scheherazade,” Khachaturian's “Violin Concerto,” and his own violin concerto, “Nohe Khan,” and was later awarded by the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts.

He has released over 250 compact discs, with his recordings of operas by Verdi and Puccini under his direction gaining particular popularity.

Rahbari leads an international project to musically adapt all one 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets. In March 2022 in collaboration with the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra he premiered his new symphonic poem “So Spoke Zarathustra,” reinterpreting the image of the Iranian prophet depicted in the works of Nietzsche and Richard Strauss.

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