Valentin Uryupin is an excellent musician, and before becoming a successful conductor, he won more than 20 international competitions as a clarinetist performing all over the world. This season, in addition to several debuts, he has several return invitations, including with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (where he made his debut in a CDD production for Sony Classical), and the Teatro Regio Torino, where he will lead a new production of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades. He will also make his first regular season appearance with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra following a successful substitute engagement in spring 2024.

Notable debuts this season include performances with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, where he will conduct concerts with cellist Julia Hagen in Antwerp and Ghent, at the Berlin State Opera (in Carmen) and at the Bavarian State Opera (conducting Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Schönberg's Erwartung). He has developed a close collaboration with the Frankfurt Opera, where he will return to conduct a new production of Tchaikovsky's The Enchantress this season, having previously achieved great success with Oedipus Rex and Jolanthe.

As a guest conductor he has also worked with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Tapiola Sinfonietta, SWR Symphonieorchester, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestra Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, German Radio Philharmonic Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. As an opera conductor, he has led highly acclaimed productions at the Stuttgart State Opera, at the New National Theatre Tokyo, at the Hanover State Opera, at the Nuremberg Theatre and at the Bregenz Festival (including Eugene Onegin, 2021 and Siberia, 2022). He has also been a frequent guest at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl. He has worked with soloists such as Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Lars Vogt, Thomas Hampson, Bryn Terfel, Barbara Hannigan, Pepe Romero, Asmik Grigorian, Vadim Gluzman, Vadim Repin, Yuri Bashmet, Denis Matsuev, Nikolai Lugansky, Sergey Khachatryan and Marc-André Hamelin. Valentin Uryupin's repertoire covers all periods, from Joseph Haydn and Jan Dismas Zelenka to Thomas Adès, Jorg Widmann and Kaija Saariaho.

In autumn 2021 Valentin Uryupin became Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Novaya Opera in Moscow, where he presented major productions of Korngold's Die tote Stadt and Massenet's Cendrillon before stepping down. As Artistic Director of the Rostov Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2021, Valentin Uryupin developed the orchestra into one of Russia's most prestigious ensembles. He has also made regular guest appearances with leading Russian orchestras, including the State Academic Symphony Orchestra "Evgeny Svetlanov," the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra and the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, with whom he most recently performed at the Lucerne Festival in 2021. He also worked closely with the MusicAeterna Orchestra at the Perm Opera for several years.

Born in Losova, Ukraine, in 1985, Valentin Uryupin first gained recognition as a clarinetist, winning over 20 international competitions and performing worldwide before finding success as a conductor. The winner of the 8th Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition (2017) completed both his studies - clarinet and conducting - at the Moscow State Conservatory. His teachers include Gennadi Roschdestwenski and clarinettist Evgeny Petrov; he also assisted Valery Gergiev, Teodor Currentzis, and Vladimir Jurowski, and he received significant inspiration from Kurt Masur in the latter's last masterclass. His career is now equally divided between the opera house and the symphony stage, and he occasionally performs as solo & conductor.