St. Petersburg Philharmonic

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assistant conductor by Yevgeny Mravinsky, then the greatest conductor in the USSR.

A man on the move, Temirkanov left the Philharmonic the following year to become principal conductor of the Leningrad Symphony and then music director of the Kirov Opera and Ballet before eventually succeeding Mravinsky at the helm of the Philharmonic. And there Temirkanov has remained as the orchestra's artistic director and chief conductor, through the fall of the USSR and the name change back to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic in 1991.

On Sunday, November 4, at Hill Auditorium, Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg return to Ann Arbor, he for the sixth time, they for the tenth. Anyone who's attended any of Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg's previous appearances already knows what to expect: a conductor of flawless technique and consummate control and an orchestra of blazing virtuosity and unsurpassed power. They'll be opening with Mozart's Marriage of Figaro Overture and closing with Prokofiev's Second Suite from his Romeo and Juliet ballet, giving them a chance to show off just what makes them one of the great European orchestras.