Brian Wright - Conductor

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ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA - In the 2000/1 season, Brian conducted the RPO in a highly successful tour of China, including the Shanghai International Festival. The Shanghai press wrote: "A great interpretation from a world class conductor and orchestra ... a concert on the highest level in China in recent years." In 2005/6 Brian conducted four major concerts with the RPO including Britten’s War Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall and an orchestral concert in their Cadogan Hall series. In 2006/7 he conducted an acclaimed broadcast performance of Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts at the RAH and in 2007/8 Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. 2008/9 brought Fauré and Berlioz at the RAH and Verdi’s Requiem in 2009/10. Concerts with the RPO in 2010 included Beethoven’s Eroica in Malvern and Wolverhampton and he conducts a programme of Elgar ‘s Enigma Variations and Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony at the RAH in November 2011.

ROMANIA - In May 2005 Brian visited Bucharest for concerts with the George Enescu Philharmonic featuring Brahms’s Tragic overture and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. He was immediately re-engaged for a programme of Sibelius, Liszt and Dvorak’s 7th Symphony in April 2007 and conducted two further concerts in April 2011 of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony.

SLOVENIA - In Easter week, April 2007 Brian visited Ljubljana for a concert  including Poulenc’s Stabat Mater and Elgar’s Cello Concerto, with the Slovenian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Brian returns to Llubljana in 2011/12.

MAIDSTONE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA - 2010/11 was MSO’s centenary season. Brian’s repertoire with them included Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, Dvorak 9, Britten’s Young Person’s Guide, Mahler 5 and the world premiere of John McCabe’s Three Portraits from Arthur, commissioned by the orchestra, in March 2011. The Stage wrote in June 2005: “The string sound is clear and incisive, the brass impeccably tuned and the percussion have that clockwork sense of timing which always leaves me gasping with admiration. The woodwind section is pretty good too! No, I’m not in a pricey London venue enjoying the LSO or a top visiting orchestra, I’m at Mote Hall, Maidstone, on a damp Saturday night, listening to the Maidstone Symphony Orchestra.” 2011/12 brings Shostakovich 5, Dvorak 5, Sibelius 1, Schumann 1 and Elgar 1.

LONDON CHORAL CONCERTS - Since 2005 Brian has conducted Goldsmiths Choral Union at major London venues in Britten’s War Requiem, Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s B minor Mass, Schubert’s Eb Mass, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, Bach’s Easter Oratorio, Ascension Oratorio and Magnificat, Bruckner’s E minor Mass, Fauré’s Requiem, Berlioz’s Te Deum, Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Haydn’s Salve Regina and Nelson Mass, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Peter Skellern’s Weathers, Verdi’s Requiem, Bach’s St. John Passion, Haydn’s Maria Theresa Mass and Mozart’s Requiem and works by Sir Arthur Bliss and Ronald Corp. Brian and GCU were featured in Classic FM’s Hall of Fame on Christmas Day 2009 with a new recording of Peter  Skellern’s carol “Were you there?” Brian returned to the Royal Festival Hall in November 2010 for a programme of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem and his 2010/11 season also includes Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and a programme of Britten, Bliss and Vaughan Williams both at Cadogan Hall. 2011/12 brings Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony at the Royal Albert Hall and Mozart’s Vespers and Mass in C minor at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Handel’s Messiah, RAH