Andrei Petrenko is an Honored Artist of Russia (2008). He graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory where he majored in choral, symphonic and opera conducting. He started his musical career in 1981 at the Leningrad Theater of Musical Comedy, where he worked as a producer and conductor; then he was invited to work as the artistic director of the Smolny Cathedral Choir; he was a guest conductor of the St. Petersburg Congress Orchestra. From 1989 to 2000 he taught choral and symphonic conducting at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

He has toured to more than 20 countries with choirs and symphony orchestras. In 2000 he started working as the chief choirmaster at the Mariinsky Theatre where he also conducts operas, cantata, oratorio and symphonic compositions; he prepares concert programs featuring performances of opera, choir and orchestra soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre. Under his directorship, the choir of the Mariinsky Theatre gave performances in prestigious concert halls of Russia, Lithuania, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Great Britain and Israel.

In 2008 Andrei Petrenko was invited to work as a guest conductor of the Choeur de Radio France. In 2014 he started working as a chief guest choirmaster and then (in 2015) the artistic director of the Symphonic Choir of the Sverdlovsk Philharmonic.