The Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra or just the Mariinsky Orchestra (formerly known as the Kirov Orchestra) is located in the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. The orchestra was founded in 1783 during the reign of

Catherine the Great , en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes , house = , father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp , birth_date = , birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...

, it was known before the revolution as the Russian Imperial Opera Orchestra. The orchestra is one of the oldest musical institutions in

. In 1935

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

changed its name (and that of the Ballet) to the Kirov, after

Sergei Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and membe ...

, the first secretary of the Communist Party in Leningrad, whose 1934

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

by his regime Stalin was attempting to whitewash. After the collapse of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, the name was changed back to the Mariinsky in 1992. The current artistic and general director of the Mariinsky Theatre is the conductor Valery Gergiev. Under Gergiev, the Mariinsky Orchestra has become one of the leading

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

s in Russia.

References

External links

Mariinsky Orchestra website
{{Authority control Russian orchestras 1783 establishments in the Russian Empire Musical groups established in the 1780s