Peter Selwyn

Peter is a London-born and -based conductor. He is one of the UK’s most experienced opera conductors and is becoming increasingly acclaimed for his work in the symphonic repertoire.

He has a repertoire of over 120 operas, of which he has conducted around 70, for UK companies including Opera North, Welsh National Opera, English Touring Opera and Opera Holland Park and in Australia, Singapore, Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

During eight years in Germany he worked as Head of Music and Kapellmeister at Staatstheater Nürnberg, where he conducted around 150 performances of a wide repertory including Peter Grimes, works by Verdi and Puccini, and the major operas of Mozart. He spent a season at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and assisted at Bayreuth on the millennial Ring Cycle. He co-founded and for nearly 20 years was co-Artistic Director of the Internationales Kammermusikfestival Nürnberg, where he conducted numerous Britten chamber operas, several operatic world premieres and many large scale chamber works.

A passionate Wagnerian, he has worked on numerous full Ring Cycles, including five seasons at Bayreuth, also at RBO (Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden), Nuremberg, Strasbourg, Longborough Festival and with the LPO. In recent years he has concluded a 4-year project conducting Jonathan Dove’s innovative reduction of the Ring Cycle for the Grimeborn Festival at the Hackney Empire, conducted Götterdämmerung, Siegfried, Die Walküre and Tristan und Isolde at Sinfonia Smith Square for the London Opera Company, and twice returned to Bayreuth to assist on the current Ring Cycle. He also conducted Parsifal (Act 3) for Temple Music Foundation, and the first production of a Wagner opera at Opera Holland Park, Der fliegende Holländer.

He has amassed a large and varied symphonic repertoire and has worked with many orchestras and ensembles in Europe and UK including the Nürnberger Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestra dell’ Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Orchestras of Opera North and Welsh National Opera, City of London Sinfonia, Southbank Sinfonia, Aurora Orchestra, Orpheus Sinfonia and National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.

He is a Professor at the Royal College of Music and a regular coach on the Jette Parker Artists Programme at the RBO, where he also works as a guest on the music staff. Alongside his position with the Lambeth Orchestra he is Music Director of the London Opera Company and the newly appointed Music Director of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Symphony Orchestra.

Peter studied Modern Languages at Cambridge, then piano at the Royal Academy of Music. He began his career as a member of the ENO music staff, before moving to the RBO, where he worked with some of the world’s greatest singers and conductors.

Current and future plans include conducting Der Freischütz with Chelsea Opera Group and Tristan und Isolde with London Opera Company, as well as a full season of concerts with Lambeth and Royal Tunbridge Symphony Orchestras.

For further info please visit: www.peterselwyn.com