Alexander Titov was born in St Petersburg (Leningrad) in 1954. He studied at the Leningrad State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire, where he concentrated on three distinct fields: choral conducting, piano, and operatic-symphonic conducting (in the class of Professor Ilya Musin). In 1981 he assumed the post of lecturer in opera and symphonic conducting at the Conservatoire. He began his conducting career as assistant to Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Mstislav Rostropovich, and has since become one of Russia’s leading conductors. He is a regular guest with the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra, the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he conducts many of the top ensembles in St Petersburg. He has toured widely, with visits to the USA, Japan, UK, Germany, Italy, Columbia, Latvia, Portugal and Spain. He works regularly with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.