Russian National Orchestra

The Russian National Orchestra (Russian: Российский национальный оркестр) premiered in Moscow in 1990.

It was the first Russian orchestra to perform at the Apostolic Palace, Vatican and in Israel.

The RNO's first recording (1991) was Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, Pathétique, released on Virgin Classics. Since then, the orchestra has made over 75 recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Pentatone, Ondine, Warner Classics and other labels, and with conductors that include RNO Founder and Artistic Director Mikhail Pletnev, Vladimir Jurowski, Kent Nagano, Alexander Vedernikov, Carlo Ponti Jr., José Serebrier and Vasily Petrenko.

The RNO’s recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf and Beintus's Wolf Tracks, conducted by Kent Nagano and narrated by Sophia Loren, Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev, was the winner of a 2004 Grammy Award, making the RNO the first Russian orchestra ever to win this honor. A Spanish-language version narrated by Antonio Banderas was released in 2007, following a Russian version narrated by actors Oleg Tabakov and Sergei Bezrukov, with a Mandarin edition following in 2011. Narrators in concert versions of these works have included actors Danny Glover, Diana Douglas, Sean Dill and Debbie Allen, model Tatiana Sorokko, Singaporean violinist Min Lee, and BBC anchor Seva Novgorodsev.