Born and raised in the USA, Gavriel Heine was the first American citizen to graduate from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He studied conducting with Ilya Musin and Leonid Korchmar at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he studied with Imre Palló, Thomas Baldner and David Effron. Following his 2007 debut at the Mariinsky Theater, by invitation of Valery Gergiev, he was appointed resident conductor, eventually leading over 850 performances with the company. 



Both with the Mariinsky and as a guest conductor, Heine has performed in some of the world’s most important opera houses, festivals and concert venues, including London’s Royal Opera House; the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden; Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater; Teatro Regio Torino; Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, the Dubai Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa, Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Boston Opera House with Boston Ballet and Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. 



Heine has guest conducted the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana; La Verdi Orchestra of Milan, the orchestras of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna and the Teatro Regio Torino; the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia "Evgeny Svetlanov", Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, Athens State Orchestra, Moscow’s Symphony Orchestra of New Russia, the Saint Petersburg State Cappella Symphony Orchestra; the Jönköping Sinfonietta in Sweden and the Mikkeli Chamber Orchestra in Finland. He led rehearsals with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra as assistant conductor to Valery Gergiev. 



In April 2022 he resigned from his position of resident conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia after 15 seasons with the world-renowned company where he debuted in 2007. He also has been Music Director of Northern Lights Festival Opera in Minnesota since 2011. Heine was Assistant Conductor of Center City Opera Theater in Philadelphia from 2006 to 2007 and served as Chief Conductor of the Kharkiv Slobozhanski Symphony Orchestra in Ukraine from 2003 to 2007.



Recent events include Die Zauberflöte at the Northern Lights Music Festival, Eugene Onegin and Candide at Opéra de Lausanne, Swan Lake with the Royal Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Romeo and Juliet with the State Ballet of Georgia at Dubai Opera.