Conductors
Bampton Classical Opera has worked with a number of conductors, some of whom are described below. We do not have a permanent music director.
2009 season
Christian Curnyn studied at the University of York and the GSMD. As music director of early opera company, he has conducted the ensemble at many of the leading festivals in Britain, including Aldeburgh, Buxton, Cheltenham and Covent Garden, as well as at the South Bank Centre, Cadogan Hall, and Wigmore Hall, where he recently conducted his tenth concert. Christian has recorded both Partenope and Semele for Chandos, the latter picked as a best CD of 2007 by The Sunday Times, and has just been in the studio recording John Eccles’s The Judgment of Paris, again for Chandos. Other opera conducting engagements have included Semele and Tamerlano for Scottish Opera, Semele in Budapest, Jephtha for Halle Handelfestpiele, Saul for Opera North, L’elisir d’amore and Le Nozze di Figaro for Grange Park, and Platee in Lisbon. Orchestral conducting engagements have taken him to orchestras in Tokyo, New York, Karlsruhe, Stavanger, and Barcelona. He made his debut for The Royal Opera conducting Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera. Future engagements include Giasone for Chicago Opera Theater, Eliogabalo for Grange Park, both Partenope and Dido and Aeneas for English National Opera, and his conducting debuts with The NDR Symphony Hannover, Ulster Orchestra, and The English Concert.
Alice Farnham began her musical career as an organist, holding scholarships at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, and St. Thomas’ Church, Fifth Avenue, New York. She studied symphonic and operatic conducting with the legendary pedagogue Ilya Musin at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire from 1997 to 2000. Whilst in Russia she conducted the St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra and tht Hermitage Camerata. On the operatic platform Alice has recently conducted Falstaff for Grange Park Opera and on the Pimlico Opera autumn Tour; she also conducted I Capuleti e i Montecchi for Pimlico Opera in 2007. She has appeared as a guest conductor with English Touring Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), London City Opera (Carmen USA Tour) and European Chamber Opera (Die Zauberflőte). She is a part-time member of the music staff at the Royal Opera, and for three years was chorus master and assistant conductor at Gothenburg Opera. In Sweden she was also Artistic Director of the Borås Symphony Orchestra from 2004-2007. Alice is equally at home conducting ballet, and is a guest conductor for Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Ballet; in May 2009 she will make her Covent Garden debut conducting Giselle.
Gilly French is an artistic director of Bampton Classical Opera. She studies with Richard Dickins and is also the conductor of the London chamber choir Cantandum and of Imperial Winds. As a singer she has appeared in concerts with the Bampton Classical Players and as a recitalist. For Bampton she has conducted a number of St Beornwald’s day concerts and is also music director of the education projects held in association with Queen’s College, London. Recent highlights include Apollo and Hyacinth and extracts from Dido and Aeneas at Queen’s College, Byrd at Westminster Abbey and Victoria at St John’s Smith Square as well as a semi-staging of Handel’s The Choice of Hercules with Cantandum, and a joint concert with the Band of the Coldstream Guards and Imperial Winds.
Murray Hipkin studied at York University, the Guildhall and the National Opera Studio before joining the music staff of English National Opera (1983-1988). He then worked for Opéra de Lyon, La Monnaie, Opera Factory, Scottish Opera and Opera Brava before returning to ENO in 1995 where he has appeared in Mahagonny, The Silver Tassie, Leoncavallo’s La bohème and The Rake’s Progress, and worked extensively as coach, repetiteur (including Wagner’s Ring) and assistant conductor. He appeared with Bjork in Pierrot Iunaire at the 1996 Verbier Festival and coached her on John Tavener’s Prayer of the Heart. In February 2002 he conducted on location for the Channel 4 film of John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer. He has assisted at Garsington and the Tower of London Music Festivaland since 2003 has been Musical Director of the North London Chorus. He has conducted La bohème (Surrey Opera, Opera Box), Salieri’s Falstaff, Haydn’s La vera costanza and Mozart’s Apollo and Hyacinth (Bampton Classical Opera), The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, The Gondoliers and Kismet (ENO) and Sweeney Todd (Shawford Mill). Murray is currently Musical Director of The Sound of Music at the London Palladium and assistant conductor on Dr Atomic at ENO. Murray Hipkin is a member of English National Opera and appears by permission.
Past seasons
Alexander Briger The Philosopher's Stone;
A Comedy of Errors
Matthew Coorey The
Jewel Box
Christian Curnyn Le Cinesi; Apollo and Hyacinth
Richard Dickins Acis
and Galatea (Mozart orchestration)
Tecwyn Evans Music for
voices and harp (concert)
Gilly French Apollo and Hyacinth; several
concerts
Edward Gardner Waiting
for Figaro
Matthew Halls Romeo and Juliet
Murray Hipkin Falstaff;
La vera costanza; Apollo and Hyacinth
Guy Hopkins Orpheus
and Euridice; Don Giovanni; Alfred; Nina
Paul
Hoskins The Barber of Seville ;
La capricciosa corretta
Jason Lai L'infedeltà delusa; Don
Giovanni
Robin Newton Leonora
David Owen Norris The Two
Barons of Rocca Azzurra
Simon Over A
Comedy of Errors
Gregory Rose A European
Christmas (concert)
Alexander Walker A Comedy
of Errors
