Marina Kosterina
born in Omsk, began her studies there, attending its music school and then its music college. In 2006 she graduated from the Gnesin Russian Academy in Moscow, having studied in the specialist piano class of Grigory Gordon. She then spent three more years there, in the class of Vladimir Tropp, and after her graduation in 2009, she joined the staff of the Academy, teaching in the Special Piano Department. During this period, she made a number of contributions to international academic conferences. She left the Academy in 2014, following her appointment as piano soloist of the Siberian Symphony Orchestra (or the Omsk Philharmonic, as it is known domestically).

She has given recitals, appeared as concerto soloist and performed in chamber music at The National Opera Center of Opera America and the Baruch Center of Performing Arts, both in New York, the Rachmaninov Hall of the Moscow State Conservatoire, the Grand Hall of the Gnesin Russian Academy, the Russian State Museum of Fine Arts and the Russian National Museum of Music, all in Moscow. She has made concerto appearances with the philharmonic orchestras of Magnitogorsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tula and Vologda, and has also performed in Germany, Italy and Poland.

Marina Kosterina’s career has been distinguished by successes in a number of competitions, both at home in Russia and abroad: she is the recipient of first prize in the St Petersburg International competition in 1996; diplomas in the First International Russian Season Competition in Yekaterinburg in 2005 and in the Twelfth Maria Yudina International Competition in St Petersburg in 2011; third prize in the Eleventh International ‘Muzika be sienų’ (‘Music without Limits’) Competition in Lithuania, also in 2011; first prizes in the International Piano Competition ‘A. Scriabin’ in 2012, held that year in Paris, and in the International Competition in Memory of Franz Schubert in Moscow a year later; second prizes in the International Rachmaninov Competition in Madrid in 2013 and in the Alion Baltic International Music Competition in Tallinn in 2016; the ‘Best Interpretation Award’ at the Third George Gershwin International Music Competition in New York in 2017 and, most recently, in 2018, first prize in the Triumph Music Festival International Competition in Philadelphia.

Dmitry Vasiliev
the artistic director and principal conductor of the Siberian Symphony Orchestra, was born in 1972 in the city of Bolshoi Kamen in the Russian Far East. He graduated from the Rostov State Conservatoire and then took a postgraduate course under the guidance of Alexander Skulsky at the Nizhny Novgorod State Conservatoire. He also participated in master-classes given by Alexander Vedernikov and Vladimir Ziva in Moscow.

He has since been active throughout Russia. In 1997, at the age of 24, he set up the Tambov Symphony Orchestra in Tambov, south of Moscow, which he led as artistic director and chief conductor until 2005. While in Tambov he was artistic director of the International Rachmaninov Festival, the Tambov Musicians’ Festival and the Musical Province Festival. In 2003 he was awarded a diploma in the Fourth International Prokofiev Competition in St. Petersburg. In 2003–5 he held the position of guest chief conductor of the Sochi Symphony Orchestra.

Since 2005 he has been principal conductor of the Siberian Symphony Orchestra in Omsk, where, from 2008, he has been an artistic director of the Biennale New Music Festival. In June 2009 he took the Siberian Symphony Orchestra to Moscow to participate in the Fourth Festival of World Symphony Orchestras. Since then, the SSO under his direction has toured many times to Moscow (the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall), St Petersburg (the Mariinsky Theatre) and other cities in Russia, Austria, Italy and China.

In Moscow he has conducted the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also conducted other Russian orchestras, including the St Petersburg State Capella, the Nizhny Novgorod Philharmonic, Rostov Philharmonic, Ulyanovsk Philharmonic, Voronezh Philharmonic, Caucasus Mineral Waters Philharmonic, Belgorod Philharmonic, Petrozavodsk Philharmonic, Tomsk Philharmonic and the Khabarovsk Philharmonic. Internationally, he has appeared in France, Italy, Poland, Israel (with the Israel Symphony Orchestra) and South Korea.